


Lupin IV - A New Time to Shine

by J_Lucy_Daisuke



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, F/M, Gen, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Next Generation, children of original cast, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4644669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Lucy_Daisuke/pseuds/J_Lucy_Daisuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lupin IV disappears following a disastrous heist, one Fujiko "Fuji" Lupin takes up the family business, planning even bigger and better hiests and a crew of her own, consisting of members from her brother's old team. This includes a hacker, expert in disguises, and Zantetsuken-welding swordswoman from the Ishikawa family, and a getaway driver, bodyguard, and gunwoman from the Jigen family.<br/>Fuji is out to make a name for herself, which is all fine and dandy, but where is the real Lupin IV, and what is his connection to Zenigata's son, the begruding Interpol agent damned to walk in his father's footsteps against his will?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So you know those jerks who like, get busy in life with some stupid stuff and then like put a ton of stuff on the backburner? Guess who turned into that jerk? Well it’s all good now! That’s the good news. The I guess maybe neutral news was that I looked back on my old series, realized I’d started it when I was around sixteen years old, and that I was now close to thirty. I was actually pretty close to the age of the characters I was writing about, so I’d probably have a different outlook now. So I decided on a reboot for the Lupin IV cast. You know, I might return to the original someday, but I just feel like it’s been a while that I’d need time to at this point.
> 
> I hope you guys, people reading for the first time, and maybe some of my older readers, both enjoy this. It’s a lot of fun coming back to these characters with a much different outlook and with a little bit more experience under my belt. I hope you guys have fun! Feedback is always appreciated!
> 
> Anyway, in honor of the new Lupin III series, here’s a new Lupin IV series.

Naples, Italy

“So she’s still in there?”  
“So far, so good,” said the other guard.  
“Anyone check her for weapons yet?!” asked the first guard, barely masking his excitement.  
“Yeah. You’d never guess where she managed to hide a machine gun,” the first snorted before glancing in through the barred window. The tiny woman with the short black hair and large chest looked up from her nails to him, waving briefly before returning to examine her manicure.  
“Say! One of you wouldn’t happen to have a file, would you?” she asked, trying to rise from her seat but being suddenly reminded of her restraints as she found herself pulled back down by the chain around her waist.  
“Nice try, Lupin,” the guard laughed. “Hey, ain’t you supposed to be a guy?”  
“I thought about asking you the same thing, but as you pointed out already, I’m a lady,” she replied with a wink.   
The one guard growled as his partner burst out in laughter, and delivered a punch to the man’s stomach, “Well, lady or not, working solo ain’t gonna work for you here.”  
“And who says I work alone, boys?” she asked with a grin.

_____

Boston, Massachusetts

“Jamison, Mark… Jansing, Julia…” the dean read off the names from the list, and one near-graduate in particular shifted in her seat, looking out at the crowd. Looking over her shoulder she saw them both. They stuck out like sore thumbs amongst the uptight Harvard parents, between her father in his worn-out gray suit and her mother in her thick makeup and “busy” jewelry.  
Ryo felt a wave of panic wash over her as she felt her cell phone vibrate. She tried to convince herself not to look at it.  
After the third round of vibrations she sighed, shut her eyes tightly, and dared herself to force her eyes open read the messages.  
“Really? That’s your code word?” her shoulders fell as she read the message, a lone word repeated over and over in numerous texts. She looked up in her stands again to her parents and bit her lower lip, and slowly raised her phone. Her father was shaking his head “no” slightly, while her mother opted for more broad “NOOO” gestures with her hands.  
“Jigen, Ryoko,” Ryo hopped up from the sound of her name and rushed down the aisle and across the stage.  
She grabbed onto the diploma just as quickly as she climbed up the stairs, and instead of shaking hands with the president, she found herself handing him her graduation robes, revealing her white capri pants and orange shirt underneath.  
“Sorry, I have to run. My boss needs me,” she explained as she fluffed out her wavy hair that had been flattened by the ridiculous-looking hat before placing it on top of the president’s own had. She could see her mother and father in the stands; Jigen was rubbing his forehead while her mother had resigned to covering her face with her hands.  
Ryo ran out from the hall as fast as her sandals would let her, and out to the parking lot. Amongst the numerous high-end imports there stood her baby—A lovely red Alfa Romeo that she’d restored not too long ago.  
She kicked off her sandals, tossed them in the back seat, and peeled away for her next destination.

____  
Kyoto, Japan

“Thank you for calling Ishikawa technical, Heiji speaking. How may I be of service?” a pudgy young Japanese man sat cross-legged in front of three laptops on the floor of a bedroom cluttered with technology as he spoke into his headset, and he listened intently to the panicked voice on the other end of the line, “Have you tried plugging in the printer? Yup… Yup that should do it. Happy to help! Have a good rest of your day!”  
He removed his headset and stretched, “Another day, another idiot who should be pounding rocks together instead of working in an office…”  
“Heiji! Heiji!” the pounding on the other side of the door made him sigh, and Heiji rose from his spot, and he slowly slide the screen to reveal two small children, both of whom gripped onto the same phone as they held it out in front of him. “Phone call!”  
“What? On this thing?” Heiji greeted the device with a raised eyebrow and wretched it from the grip of the two, and gingerly held it up to his ear. After a moment of listening, his expression changed to one of dull surprise. “That’s the code word she used…? Have either of you two seen Dori?”  
“She’s with Papa!” shouted one.  
“Follow us!” another called out, rushing down the long wooden hall of the traditional-style home.  
“…Great…” he tossed aside the cordless phone and followed the two out to the middle courtyard of the house.  
Odori Ishikawa, all 4”10 of her, was standing silently in the middle of a circle of bamboo reeds, her sword drawn. She steadied her breathing, and checked the direction of the wind. A single breeze blew a leaf in front of her, and she opened one eye upon feeling its presence.  
With a single yell, and two swipes, there were two flashes, followed by the sheathing of her sword. Slowly, all the pieces of bamboo started to slide, and she was left in a circle of cut bamboo.  
“So cool!” gasped one young girl from her spot on the porch in the courtyard, and a few more children started clapping and cheering for her. From the center of it, Odori looked up and saw from his spot Goemon Ishikawa give what she could have sworn was his version of a smile.  
“…I just want to know how she got in the center of that thing. Did she climb, or was there a ladder?” Heiji said from behind his father, breaking the steady cheering for his sister. She jumped over what was left of the bamboo and landed in front of their father, breaking her stance to adjust the long ponytail of hair that fell down below her waist. Somehow in the mix it had come loose, and she tended to adjusting it while waiting to hear Goemon’s verdict.  
“You’re getting better,” Goemon replied with a small nod, and Odori stopped herself from smiling to nod sternly in return.  
“Hey, Dori? We got the code word,” Heiji waved over to his sister, and she narrowed her eyes.  
“What’s she gotten herself into now?”  
“I don’t even know anymore. Just get packed.”  
“You’re off again?” Goemon turned around to Heiji, and he held up his hands and sighed.  
“I guess so. Here I was thinking we didn’t need to be after Ari…” Heiji trailed off and shook his head. “I’m going to get my stuff together.”  
“The rest of you go to your mother,” Goemon said to the children surrounding him, and with moans they all stood up from their stops and headed toward the dining room. “And no snacking before lunch! Odori… I want to see you a moment alone.”  
Odori nodded again wordlessly, watching as her father slowly stood from his stop. As she spied the scar on his chest, she tried not to react to it, but found herself looking away.  
She followed Goemon down another long hall in the sprawling home, stopping at the foot of what was considered his private training area.  
“It’s all right,” he reassured her, turning back to her. With a nod she walked in, looking about at the artwork on the walls. She wasn’t sure what was family heirloom or conquest from a heist over the years.  
In in the center of the room, lit by two candles and perched on a stand, was a simple-looking sword in a wooden sheath. She knew better than to think it was just a regular sword, though. So her breath halted when Goemon lifted it up off of the stand and held it out.  
“I have the feeling that this will not be the last call your get. I have been thinking a long time about this… And I want you to be the one to wield Zantetsuken.”  
“Me…? But I’m nowhere near ready!”  
“You’re going against my judgment?”  
“N-No. Not at all,” she realized she was standing, and immediately knelt down in front of him. “I just always assumed it would go to… Well… One of your blood children…”  
“Toshiro has no interest… He has developed his own sword fighting style… And Heiji…” Goemon cringed as he heard a crash, signifying his son was nearby. “…Heiji is more like his mother, and fights with the use of technology.”  
“Anyone seen a cell phone jammer?!” he shouted through the hall, and Goemon and Odori both shared sighs. “A cell phone jammer! I need it!”  
“I would be honored to wield it…” she gently took it from his hands and stared at it as she examined it, opening it slightly. “It’s much lighter than I thought it would be…”  
She slipped it in the sash around her green hakama, and rose from her spot where she had been kneeling, instead giving a deep bow to her father.  
“I won’t disappoint you.”  
“I know. Now go help your brother find his jam or whatever he’s shouting about.”  
Odori waited until she was out in the hallway and had slid the door behind her to allow herself a small squeal of excitement.  
“I heard that!” Heiji called, sticking his head out the opened door of one of the storage rooms.  
“I will END you!” she snarled, and Goemon gave another sigh from his side of the shoji good as he heard two sounds of footsteps running down the hall, one after the other.

____  
Chicago, Illinois

Ally had lost one of his crowns out on the ice. He didn’t let this bother him, however. He spat it out on the ground while in the penalty box and wiped the blood from his nose. He’d gotten his father’s larger nose, meaning that it would be a while before that stopped.  
He looked up from a head of shaggy hair at the score on the board of the hockey arena.  
“We’re losing our asses to a team from Florida. Un-friggin’-believable. They don’t even HAVE ice!” he grumbled with disdain, sniffing up more blood to prevent it from trialing down onto his shirt. How he hated the familiar smell of copper. He squinted as the JumboTron suddenly changed from the thousandth stupid video of a couple kissing to instead a picture of a familiar face in a short black jacket and short red dress blowing a kiss and a word written underneath her. “….So that’s what you choose as a code word? Well, she ain’t Ari… That’s for sure…”  
The rest of Ally’s team watched as he exited the penalty box, started skating towards them, skated past them, and rushed off of the ice. The announcer seemed befuddled as to what was happening. Ally’s coach was screaming. At his own home, Jigen watched silently in disdain as yet another child ran away from what should have been a shining moment. Jigen leaned back in his recliner, placed his fedora over his eyes, and called it a day.  
Ally tried his best not to get blood on the flat black shoes, black pants, and black and gray gong fu-style jacket, which he only buttoned up halfway before he rushed out with his duffle bag to escape the wrath of his coach, who he could hear screaming in the halls.  
“I’m so getting traded for this…” he said to himself as he rushed out through one of the back entrances of the arena.

_____

New York, New York

“And here’s our costume department!” called out the tour guide to the group of children as they shuffled along the back of the stage, gazing upon the rows and rows of costumes. One in particular stood out to a small boy. It was a devilish bronze mask with horns, attached to a long, shaggy red wig. The towering mannequin held out a fan, was dressed in a gold and black kabuki costume. As the boy went to grab the fan, he let out a shriek, as did most of his classmates, as the mannequin suddenly moved, flipping over the fan and walking towards them.  
“Don’t worry, don’t worry!” came a thick Brooklyn accent from underneath the mask. He pulled it away, revealing a tall, slender Japanese man with a much smaller and shorter head of red hair. “It’s just a costume! I swear!”  
“That’s Mr. Ishikawa, children…” the guide barely hid her contempt as she glared at Toshiro, and he gave a nervous smile as he started to unfasten the kabuki outfit, revealing a plain black T-shirt and jeans beneath.  
“Any of you kids interested in workin’ in the theater?”  
There were a few shaky hand raises amongst the still-spooked children, and Toshiro perked up.  
“That’s great! Not for nothin’, but I’ve been workin’ here since I was your guys’ age!”  
“Why’s your hair red, mister?” finally asked one boy.  
“I went gray early from stress!” Toshiro explained, kneeling down in front of the child and letting his hair out of its ponytail, allowing it to fall to his shoulders. “Plus the good guys in kabuki always wore red, so I just color it that now!”  
“So you’re a good guy?”  
“I like to think so… Oh? Eh, gotta take this. Sorry!” he rose as he felt his cell phone vibrate, and his smile fell as he read the single line of text. “…Great. Hey, Sheila? Tell the boss I’m not gonna be able to teach that opera class later today, okay? Somethin’ came up from my other job…”

_____

Barcelona, Spain

Just breathe. She rested her cigarette on the ledge of the building, and she noted the trail the smoke traveled in. As the winds died down, she scooted closer on her stomach and pulled up her white fedora with the black band around it. Form the scope of her sniper rifle she could see him, another overweight politician all-too-happily taking a bribe and exchanging it with a handshake.  
“Sorry. Not gonna get to enjoy that big ole’ jet and that model with the big new boobs…” she said to herself in a chuckle as she locked onto her target.  
The sudden noise from her phone surprised her so that her finger slipped on the trigger, and with a yelp the bullet, meant for the politician’s head, instead chipped an edge of the building. She’d been spotted. She could see, even from the great distance, that he was pointing at her and shouting.  
She rolled over onto her back, not minding she was dirtying up her mainly white suit, and opened up the flip phone. “I had this on silent, so how—Damn it…”  
All the message said was “QUACK”. But it was enough to let her know who it was from.  
“…Idiot…” she muttered, shutting her phone.  
She sat up and quickly disassembled her gun, still tucking it into its case as she heard footsteps running up to meet her on the landing.  
A door burst open just as she stood on the edge of the building, and she glanced over the side. Inhaling deeply, and hoping the jump to the nearest rooftop wasn’t as far down as she knew it was, Yukiko Jigen allowed herself to step off the side of the building, sniper gun carrying case under one of her arms.

____

“Zenigata?” the receptionist repeated, looking down at the identification and back up to the man in front of him, and then over the man’s shoulder to the familiar picture hanging up of the retired Inspector Zenigata. The man in the photo was clearly Japanese, with a square jaw and thick eyebrows. The man in front of him was at least part Asian, but sported a round face, pale complexion, and head of shaggy blond hair.  
“Yes,” repeated the man yet again, now through his teeth.  
“Like… Inspector Zenigata….”  
“Is that a common name here? Is that the name of the person who delivers the coffee?”  
“It’s just that. Well….”  
“I’m his son. His genes and my mom’s had a brawl in the womb. She won,” he said plainly, adjusting the green tie of his brown suit and darting his eyes around the busy office.  
“O-Oh, okay! Well, welcome Inspector Zenigata.”  
The blonde Zenigata bristled at this, quickly snatching his badge and hurrying over to find his name on a desk. What he didn’t expect was the desk in front of him that faced him to be piled high with stacks of paperwork and books.  
“Hello?” he leaned over the stack as he heard a slight snoring, and jumped back as the snoring came to a halt and a lanky man rose up from his spot in the middle of the chaos.  
He was tall, with longer brown hair that partially fell over his brown eyes and wire glasses. He wore a mainly black ensemble, excluding an orange tie and purple jacket.  
“S-Sorry… Oh my God. It’s tomorrow!” the man gasped as he looked to the large windows, and Inspector Zenigata’s brow furrowed. “I can’t believe I did that again!”  
“Some of your stuff’s on my…”  
“O-Oh! Right! Sorry, it just… Has a mind of its own! I’m Leo LeBlanc, linguistics. You’re…?”  
“Maxwell Zenigata.”  
“Zenigata! I-I know that name!”  
“You’re not the first today,” Max grumbled, taking a seat at his otherwise empty desk.   
“I-I didn’t even know he had a son, truth be told!” Leo exclaimed as he hurried over and began to shove the paperwork back onto his own spot. “I always thought he just had the one daughter!”  
“He probably did that on purpose,” Max answered as he absentmindedly searched through the desk drawers. “Who left condiments in here…?”   
“I think that’d be Clark, the last guy who sat there. Oh… Um… You guys don’t really see eye-to-eye?”  
“Do you know where I can pick up my report, LeBlanc?”  
“Yeah! Should be during the meeting!” Leo adjusted his orange tie and suit jacket as he stood in front of his mass of papers. “That should be… What time is it?”  
“Nine… Twenty?”  
“We’re late!” Leo gasped. “C-Come on, right this way!”  
He could move fast for someone who was a bookworm, Max would give him that. Zenigata was unprepared for how quickly the tall man hurried him into the office in the back of the room, and struggled to catch up while not falling on his face.  
The room full of officers was already full when Leo and Max slipped in, and the two found spots to stand in the back near the bulletin board as the meeting continued.  
“Ah! There he is! We have a transfer from San Francisco! Everyone, this is Inspector Zenigata!” Max jolted as all the faces in the room turned around to him, and he focused on one of the side walls to prevent making eye contact with any of the curious people who he knew were staring at him and all thinking the same thing.  
“Inspector, why don’t you join us up here?” said the head inspector, who waved Max up. After a moment’s hesitation Max waded through the crowded room of people, skulking like a caged lion at the applause he received. “Inspector Zenigata will be joining us here at Interpol’s Paris offices! On top of this, we have received new word that Lupin the Fourth is back in action. Inspector Zenigata will be heading up the investigation into this, given that he would know the most about the case.”  
Max’s smile was nervous. As Leo looked down at the inspector’s hands, he could see his fists were clenched, and his knuckles were white.  
“…Poor Zenigata…” Leo murmured to himself through the applause this received. “Wait a second… Lupin the… Fourth?” 

____

“Lunch?” Max looked up from the folder of paperwork in front of him to Leo, who held up a paper bag in hand. “I figured you didn’t know many of the places around here… It’s from a great bakery I found nearby. I just moved here a few months ago, so I figured I’d give the newest new guy a break.”  
“A few months and you already have all of that crap piled up around you?”  
Leo narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, “You grew up speaking Hebrew in your house? And Japanese.”  
“Eh?”  
“Well, your “you” was a little long, and the “r” in your “crap” fell somewhere in between an “l” and an “r”. You definitely try to hide it with a general American accent though, which is probably what you speak the most? Coupled with French from earlier when you were introducing yourself, I haven’t heard anything quite like you before!”  
“Glad to be so interesting,” Max snapped.  
“Sorry, I just really like that stuff, and it’s not so easy to shut off!” he admitted with a giggle. “Four languages, that’s impressive!”  
“Eh, not to you. You probably speak what, six, seven?”  
“…Twenty-six…” Leo admitted with a clearing of the throat, and Max slowly looked up from his paperwork. “B-But like four of those I’m shaky in!”  
“Four…” Max repeated quietly to himself, shaking his head.  
“W-Well, this is great! I’ve been meaning to make a friend I could speak Hebrew with! Or Japanese! I’m Japanese myself! Well, about three-quarters. My dad was part French, so that’s how I ended up here. But I grew up speaking mainly Japanese and French. I—”  
“Listen. I get that you like talking. If it’s one thing I get it’s that you like talking. But I’m here to work.”  
“Oh… S-Sorry. I guess I just get ahead of myself…”  
“Thanks for the croissants…”  
Leo slunk down, vanishing under his stack of paperwork, and Max heard from behind the fortress moments later, “…So, do you speak any Yiddish?”  
“Farmach dos moyl,” Max snapped in return. “Shut your mouth”. Leo shuddered and slumped down in his seat.  
It was a few moments later that Leo heard a clearing of a throat and found Max standing over him, file in hand.  
“…I, um… Don’t know what this means…”   
So he’d get a chance to study the file after all, even without talking Max to death. Leo exhaled and tried to contain his relief as he took the file from Max and opened it.  
“Oh! It looks like they wrote it out this part of the report in Italian…” Leo realized as he adjusted his glasses. “A woman claiming to be Lupin the Fourth was captured in Naples, Italy two days ago. It’s unknown if she’s actually the sister of Lupin the Fourth, who suddenly vanished after a bank heist earlier last year… It is unknown if she is working with members of the Ishikawa and Jigen families. It was thought that Lupin the Third and his associates had turned to mainly living quieter lives, after switching to help out organizations with their years of expertise, but it now seems that the next generation has reverted back to a life of crime.”  
“Helping out organizations. Right…”  
“What? You don’t believe that?”  
“Not a damned minute,” replied Max. “Thief’s a thief no matter what color jacket they put on.”  
“Kinda a cynical outlook…” and Leo was startled by the glare he received.  
“If you had to deal with what I’m dealing with you’d be the same way.”  
“LeBlanc!” came a bark from the office, and Max found himself quietly grateful as Leo, wide-eyed, wandered into towards the office. “You too, Zenigata!”  
“What? Me?” Max muttered, and followed in after Leo. The silence had been good while it lasted—All thirty seconds of it.  
The chief tossed down a photograph on his desk and leaned back in his seat. “What do you make of this?”  
“Gibberish,” said Max plainly.  
“It’s a code,” Leo skimmed over the picture of the handwritten note. “Woman’s handwriting, too.”  
“You’re a handwriting expert, too?” Max asked, feeling more exhausted than before.  
“There’s lipstick at the bottom of the letter.”  
“Trust me when I can say that that can still be a guy…”  
“It’s from Lupin… If you’re right, LeBlanc, then it’s a definite that his sister’s taken over for him since he’s vanished. We don’t know as much about Fuji Lupin, unfortunately. Only that she seemed to serve as his right hand while he was still in charge. Also that every letter she’s been leaving us has been in this code. LeBlanc, do you think you could break it?”  
“I did you one better. I’ve got it cracked,” Leo handed the photo back to the chief, and both the chief and Max stared at the lanky man, speechless. Leo felt himself grow nervous as the attention and scratched the back of his head. “I used to make stuff like this for fun. It’s about her next heist. It’s supposed to be in Naples.”  
The chief leaned forward in his seat, “She’s in jail there. We’re having her transferred.”  
“She doesn’t intend to stay there long, I’ll tell you that right now…”  
“LeBLanc, you and Zenigata go together.”  
“What?!” both men yelped in unison.  
“I did NOT agree to a partner when I agreed to a transfer!” Max snarled, leaning forward on the chief’s desk. After a moment of being stared down by the old man in front of him, Max righted his posture and adjusted his suit jacket.  
“You don’t have to. I made the decision for you.”  
Leo began to sputter, “With all due respect… I didn’t sign up for field service, sir. I’m quite happy with a desk job!”  
“You’re a waste behind all of those books right now, LeBlanc. We’ve had people trying to figure that code out for days, and you did if before my secretary got back with lunch. You’d be an incredibly valuable asset to Zenigata… Whether he wants to believe so or not. You leave as soon as possible. And LeBlanc?”  
“Yes, sir?”  
“For God’s sakes do something with your hair already.”  
“Y-Yes, sir…”


	2. Chapter 2

Naples Airport, Italy

"I get why the letters for this place is "NAP"… One runway. Jeeze…" Ally shook his head in disdain as he stood in front of the long window looking out the runway. Ryo barely looked up from her crossword as she sat not too far behind him, and she stifled a small chuckle. "She couldn't have gotten arrested in Venice?"

"We should just enjoy not being on the radar while we can… And maybe we should focus less on complaining and more about how to keep Toshiro and Heiji away from one another when they both arrive."

"What?!" Ally turned around to face his sister, while Ryo's eyes didn't leave her crossword. "They're both coming?! They'll kill one another!"

"If Dori's there they'll play nice… At least outwardly… And she should appreciate the sushi bar they have back there where near where we picked out our luggage."

"What about Yuki?"

"She's taking a different route, last I heard… Had some mafia guys in Spain fresh on her heels."

"And Dad worries about me and head injuries… At this rate she won't see forty!" Ally snorted, and watched as another small plane taxied into the terminal. He stepped back, looked up at the departures and arrivals, and pointed to the screen. "We have Toshiro coming in now… And Heiji and Dori got here already…"

"I heard that flight had three layovers."

"I can tell you already we aren't gonna get paid enough for this…"

"How is it YOU have the weapon but I'm the only one who gets questioned by security? Three laptops and suddenly you're getting ten minutes of interrogation!" Ally suddenly heard in a familiar grumble, and he turned to see two of the Ishikawa siblings walking side-by-side. Heiji wheeled along a large suitcase behind him in addition to his laptop bag, while Odori opted for a simple bag on her back, a suspect-looking cane under one arm, and a plastic container with the remains of rolls of sushi in her hands.

"This is rubbish…" she admitted as she picked up the last piece and popped it in her mouth.

Heiji eyed the container and chuckled, "I can't believe that Japanese food in a small Italian airport doesn't meet your lofty standards…"

"Glad you dressed the part!" Ally laughed as he walked over to Heiji and exchanged a brief hug with him. The Ishikawa boy was dressed in his usual attire—Sandals, khaki shorts, a white shirt with a light blue one unbuttoned over it, and a pair of thick black glasses.

"Hey, if I'm going to be stuck in a Mongolian airport I'm gonna be comfy!" Heiji laughed in return. "How long's it been now?"

"Since we worked together? Probably a year and a half… Ever since I went pro."

"Jerk. You join a hockey league, your sister goes to freaking Harvard, and my mom's cheering if I talk to a girl that isn't one of my sisters," in spite of this, Heiji laughed, playfully punching Ally.

"Fair warning, your brother's on this flight…" Ally whispered through his smile, and Heiji's slowly fell.

"Well, that's why this is called "work" and not "fun," I guess…" Heiji murmured, already spying the tall redhead from down the terminal.

"I beg of you for the sake of our mission to make an attempt to get along with him, Heiji," said Odori quietly.

"Oh, I would love to tell him that he looks great for a drug addict," Heiji snapped in response.

"This is not the place to bring that up," Odori gripped onto her "cane," and Heiji narrowed his eyes.

"Hey!" Toshiro called out, immediately hugging Ryo as she rose up from her seat. "Am I late to the party?"

"We wouldn't start it without you," Ally replied. "Gotta have someone to do the makeup, especially since I don't think we're getting' outta this place as easily as we got in…"

"The air feels heavy already," Odori admitted quietly.

"Um… Where's Yuki at?"

"Long story, we're picking her up from the pier… I hope you brought your own ride."

Toshiro nodded, "They're unloading it now. Same spot I'm thinking yours is at, Ryo?"

"And I already took care of the license plates," she added with a wink.

"All right. I say we go get our gunwoman!" Toshiro exclaimed. The group headed towards the parking garage, and Toshiro allowed his pace to slow that he could walk next to Heiji.

"Nice you could finally show up to something…" whispered Heiji.

"I ain't here to fight…"

"You're rarely here period," Heiji hissed through a fake smile as Odori looked over her shoulder to the both of them.

_____

"Okay, hit me," Max leaned on the armrest of his seat on the plane, and Leo opened one of the folders once more.

"Ryo Jigen."

"Getaway driver. Also good with guns."

"Odori Ishikawa."

"Swords and pointy things."

"Heiji Ishikawa."

"Nerd."

"Hey… Isn't Heiji—"

"I'm not going to talk about that, LeBlanc… Keep going."

"Toshiro Ishikawa."

"Swordsmanship."

"Also disguise expert."

"Shit. Next?"

"Ally Jigen."

"Martial arts. Violent bastard in general."

"Yukiko Jigen."

"Guns. Explosives. Anything with fire or destruction."

"Fuji Lupin?"

"Unknown. Wildcard. Kinda just rode coattails. I'm guessing she can at least pick a lock."

Leo flipped back to a few pages in the file and frowned, "…I'm just saying… Heiji Ishikawa's mom is Zenigata's daughter from his first marriage… So he's your… Nephew? Wouldn't that be a conflict?"

"I barely went on those trips to visit them… And when I did he never came out of his room," Max waved this off quickly and shook his head. "And I grew up in a completely different country. Trust me when I say it's no love lost."

"If you say so…" but Leo was unsure as he looked through the file once more. "…So why are you here, anyway? With Interpol."

"Why do you ask?"

"You just don't seem… Thrilled…"

"Police work is in my blood. Literally. It's all I ended up being decent at. I just… Needed a change of scenery for a little while. I didn't think I'd get this damned case dropped on my lap the first day of being there… I hate nepotism."

"You could have said no…"

"Please. My dad would have had me skinned alive if he knew I passed this up. We're already rocky enough as it is."

"Yeah? Zenigata always seemed like such a nice guy… From what I've heard around the office."

"I'm not saying he isn't. We just don't agree on a lot of stuff… Why'd you join? You got sent to the field and nearly jumped out of your jacket."

"I just thought this would be a good way to help people, is all… I just wanted to have a way to do that."

"Well I'll definitely rest better once this new Lupin's put away for once and for all."

"Airport's definitely tiny…" Leo muttered, looking out the window beside his seat on the already small plane. "…Eh?"

"What?"

And Leo pointed as a red Alfa Romeo was unloaded from a nearby plane.

"There isn't a car convention in town, is there?"

"They… They wouldn't be that brazen… They wouldn't…"

_____

"We should hurry," Odori's eyes opened and she snapped out of her meditative trance that she had put herself in while they waited for Toshiro and Ryo to return.

"Bad feeling?" Ally asked, glancing down at his watch.

"We have Interpol regulation phones in the airport… One of the idiots signed into the wireless here…" Heiji flipped through screens on his tablet and shook his head.

"So you can get in?" Ally asked, leaning back to look at the screen that meant close to nothing to him.

"He's in an unsecure wireless network…. So that means yes… I'm thinking maybe we'll go ahead and delete some program files… I mean, you don't need an OS to run a smart phone, right?"

"I don't know what you're doing but if it buys us some time you just do it," Ally started to tap his foot as his sister and the oldest Ishikawa boy were still nowhere to be seen.

"Eh, the people in my Warcraft guild would appreciate that at least…" Heiji muttered as he started to type on the tablet, chuckling as he did so.

____

"What the… It just died!" Max exclaimed as he tapped on the screen of his phone. This was followed by hitting it against a wall in the airport, which Leo quickly stopped him from doing.

"That's probably your nephew if they're here…"

"Don't CALL him that!" Max growled, shoving the phone in his pocket. "Come on, they're just trying to distract us! Can you still call on your phone?"

"Yeah, looks like…"

"Well, get us some backup. I can tell already that this is gonna be shit-show…" Max said with a grumble.

Meanwhile, Ryo had finally returned, driving the Alfa Romeo, and trailing not too far behind her was Toshiro on a yellow scooter.

"You still have that thing?" Odori asked as she climbed on the back of the scooter, while Ally climbed into the back seat of the Romeo and Heiji climbed in the front.

"Yeah, been working on upkeep of it!" Toshiro explained proudly. "You ready, Dori?"

"Hey guys, I hate to ruin this reunion, but I'm hearing sirens," Ally called out.

"Damn it…" Ryo reached down and pulled off her sandals. This time when she threw them in the back seat she struck Ally with one of them. "…Sorry, I guess I wasn't used to people back there anymore! Heiji, you got something for me?"

"Laptop's booted up… How about changing the traffic light colors on these poor bastards?"

"I think I can work with that," she nodded, revving up her engine and adjusting the rear view mirror. Without warning to her two passengers she peeled out of the parking garage, Toshiro not far behind her.

It wasn't long before he was in front of her, leading her away from the roads, which were currently swarming with Italian police cruisers, and towards the fenced-in tarmac. Odori slowly stood up on the back of the scooter, and with a single slice, the fence was clear-cut into two pieces.

"Dad gave you Zantetsuken!?" Toshiro balked after looking back over his shoulder to his sister.

"I earned it," she corrected him, prepping to cut through the same sort of fencing on the other side of the runway.

A plane quickly slid out of the way as Ryo made a hard right, and the shouts of panic could still be heard from the inside as she passed them.

"That was easy enough…" she muttered, shifting gears and following after Toshiro still.

The crash truck suddenly skidding on front of them was something she hadn't expected, however. She slammed on the brakes as hard as she could and remained there, wide-eyed.

Max, meanwhile, was still gripping onto his seat still, while Leo braked hard and jerked forward from behind the wheel of the crash truck. A screwdriver in the ignition spoke to how quickly Leo had taken the vehicle "in the name of Interpol" and climbed inside to stop the group.

"W-What the HELL, LeBlanc?!" Max finally managed to shriek directly in his partner's ear.

It wasn't long before the Alfa Romeo was surrounded by officers—Further on down the tarmac, Toshiro and Odori had been stopped while attempting to turn around the rescue the rest of the group.

"I don't think I'm gonna get invited back for another season…" Ally muttered as he stood with his hands raised in the air.

_____

 

"Goemon Ishikawa the fourteenth… Also known as Toshiro Ishikawa…" Max slammed down the file in front of Toshiro in the interrogation room. This attempt at intimidation only left Toshiro raising an eyebrow as he watched Zenigata in silence. Max flipped his chair and took a seat in it, leaning on the back as he glanced through the papers. "You've been quiet since a stint in rehab three years ago for… Holy shit. Cocaine and Vicodin? You don't play around. Son of Goemon Ishikawa and a member of the Rat Clan… But your dad didn't know about you for a while, right?"

Toshiro kept his silent, stern expression as Max turned to another page.

"I can go on with this thing. You're one of the oldest in the group, so you started young… We have you for impersonating an officer, impersonating a lawyer, arson, impersonating clergy—I didn't even KNOW that was a thing—vandalism, theft—of course—assault, and possession of illegal substances. That last one's the big one. You're quite the little badass."

"That's how East Coasters are, I guess," Toshiro chuckled.

"Yeah, tell that to the Rangers…" Max snorted offhandedly.

"At least we don't have to keep making excuses for the Angels!" snapped Toshiro.

"Is this about sports? I feel like you guys are talking about sports…" Leo muttered, and Toshiro transferred his glare to Leo.

"If you only knew how big an idiot you were right now you'd hang yourself by that hideous tie," Toshiro snapped to Max.

"So why the name Toshiro?"

"It's what they called me for the first nine, ten years… I lived with my grandparents. They didn't tell me who my father was. It was too dangerous."

"So glad you stayed out of danger… They must be so proud…"

Toshiro leaned back in his seat and nodded. And Max and Leo were both thrown back as he kicked up the interrogation table in one swift move. As Toshiro was pulled out of the room he shouted out expletives in both Japanese and English to the pair.

"Maybe TRY not to antagonize them?" Leo sighed as he adjusted his glasses and righted his chair once more. "Who do we have in next?"

"Ryoko Jigen."

"I'm gonna go for a coffee—You want anything?" Leo asked as he headed for the door.

"You're not staying for this?"

"Nah. She's just the driver. Small potatoes compared to some of the others…" Leo quietly opened the door, and came face-to-face with Ryo. Her eyes widened, and Leo said nothing. Max watched as his partner's shoulders squared and he stood upright in front of the driver. Leo then muttered an excuse to himself and rushed down the hall while Ryo was led into the room and seated in front of Max.

_____

"Where are you…?" Leo muttered as he looked into the different cell windows. Another scream meant another dead end. Leo was numb to the prisoners shouting out at him, by this point.

"Hey Mister… Got a nail file? I have to finish my manicure…"

Leo looked into the cell the woman's voice came from, and sure enough there was Fuji there, in an orange jumpsuit but also with bright purple nails. She was seated on the floor, applying a fake gem to her thumb with a pair of tweezers, when she called out to him.

"I swear it's not for busting out of here!" she whined to him. "This one's chipped is all!"

"Any cameras in there?" Leo asked dully.

"I let one of the guards frisk me and he let me know where they were," she said with a wink. Leo only shook his head and removed a set of picks from his right-side pocket.

"All right, gettin' out!" Fuji chirped as she rose from her spot, but her joy was replaced by confusion as Leo closed the door behind them.

"This isn't a double cross, Fuji… I'm not here to get you out of trouble again. Why are you doing this, and why are you dragging everyone into this? Especially me."

"…Do people really fall for that bad haircut and glasses? Seriously?!" her giggled was soon replaced by a full-on laugh, and Leo remained there, hands in his pockets, glowering across at her. "That's so sad! And… And what makes you think that I dragged YOU into this, too?!"

"This." Leo removed a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and held it up for her to get a good look in the otherwise dark cell. "You wrote it in that stupid code you had me make when we were little! No one's been able to crack it so now I look like the Lupin whisperer!"

"You didn't have to crack it for them, you know. You put yourself in that situation."

"It's my job."

"Job. You sound so blue collar now. This from someone who grew up playing lacrosse and took horseback riding lessons for years."

"Fuji…"

"I didn't want to see the family business go to waste!" she shrugged. "The Lupins are an empire… Which you failed to get, I guess."

"I didn't. I just don't want to see anyone hurt anymore."

"If you wanted to not hurt anyone, you shouldn't have left in the first place," she sighed. "Ryo-san hasn't been the same since. Have you seen her at all?"

"No… A little…. Fuji, this stuff isn't a game… I get that now. I'm just wondering when you will, too."

"Ari, you—"

"That's not my name," he replied automatically. The tone even took him aback, and Fuji's shock was momentary. This was switched out for a look much more reserved. "…That's not my name anymore… Fuji, I… I just can't pretend that I can go back… You… You get that, right? You can't kill someone and go back to being okay…"

_____

"Ryoko Jigen… Almost Lupin…" Max read from his file as Ryo now sat across from him. Her brown eyes looked damp as he spoke, and Max did his best to concentrate on the file and the file alone. In spite of this, he found himself shoving a tissue box on the table closer over to her as he read. "You were supposed to get married to Lupin the Fourth about a week before he went AWOL, right?"

"That's… That's right," she nodded.

"You seen him since?"

"…No."

"See, I find that just a little hard to believe. That you're engaged to someone and then you don't hear from them for a year. Not a letter, a phone call, or anything?"

"Nothing."

"…Your mom's a Triad. Your dad, well… His name speaks for itself. You've kept one of the lower profiles. So why now? What's up with joining Lupin's sister? What's she after?"

"I don't know that either."

"So you just leave Harvard, take a flight halfway around the world, and next thing you know you're with the rest of the crooks trying to make a Naples airport into a test track. I have that all correct so far, right?"

"It sounds absurd… I know that… But we're not exactly normal to begin with. I guess you can say Jigens are loyal to a fault. If Fuji messaged me, I know it was important."

"…That'll be all for now… Guard, bring me the short, angry one."

"The boy or girl one?"

"Girl," Max murmured absently as Ryo was taken back by another guard. He looked at the stack of files and sighed, barely glancing above his glasses as Odori was brought in next. Leo followed in soon afterward, with a look Max could only describe as "frazzled".

"Odori Ishikawa…"

"Uncle Maxwell," she replied to Max flatly.

Leo watched Max bite his lower lip and slowly regain himself as he stood there, gripping the file. "Can we get the next one in!? We'll get back to you, Ishikawa."

Max's disdain only grew as Odori was led out with a smug grin on her face and Fuji was shuffled in.

"Inspector Zenigata! At last! Isn't this great?!" she exclaimed as she was seated in her chair by the guards. "It's so… Romantic, almost! Another generation on two sides of the law! How exciting!"

"Lupin, I've met with most of your gang today, and I can tell you they're exhausting. So I'm going to level with you. What were you doing breaking into that museum?"

"Oh, you know. Running a test. Hey, what do you think of my nails? Inspector LeBlanc thinks they're tacky."

"And when did you have the time to speak to Inspector LeBlanc…?"

"I went to check on her while I got my coffee," Leo piped up quickly, and Fuji grinned widely.

"So… Let me guess…" Fuji leaned back in her seat and examined Max in a rare moment of quietness. "About… Twenty-six years old, right? Left handed… A little bit of a smoker… By the way, that suit reeks of nicotine… And a size eight?"

"Wrong. Shoe size nine, Lupin."

"I wasn't talking about shoes, darling," Fuji winked. Max sputtered and nearly dropped his folder, while Leo only turned a shade of stark white.

"What's your game, Lupin?!" Zenigata demanded once more, rising from his seat.

"I'm telling you, it was all just practice!"

"Practice for what?"

"You know, you'll just have to wait and see… Well, when you can again."

"H-Huh?"

Fuji raised up one of her hands, and flicked one of the fake nails off of her thumb. As soon as it touched the table in front of her an explosion boomed through the small room, followed by a puff of purple smoke. Max and Leo coughed and stumbled over one another, while quietly on the other side of the room the door to the interrogation room slid open and then close once again.

Fuji swung both of her fists up into the face of the guard stationed immediately outside the door before she resumed her running, pulling off another fake nail, this one suspiciously flat and sharp, as she rushed down the corridor.

The rest of the gang looked around in their cells, baffled, as sirens began to wail all throughout the halls.

They watched as Fuji made a sharp left turn, nearly slipping onto the ground, before she hurried down the hall, jumping up and kicking one of the guards in her path before she giggled and continued her run towards the cells.

"Now who's glad to see me?!" she exclaimed, hurrying over to the door of Ryo and Odori's cell. Fuji bent over and pounded on her stomach a few times before she spit out the bobby pin into her hands, and quickly picked away at the long. "God bless this place not upgrading to key locks, am I right?!"

"Fuji, hurry!" Ryo begged her.

"Not even a hello?! And after I bought you a graduation gift and everything, Ryo-san!" Fuji huffed, exclaiming happily as she heard the click of the door and pushed back the door. As Ryo and Odori passed her she handed them their respective weapons—A Browning and Zantetsuken. "I made a quick pit stop in the storage room. I had to get my clothes and I figured why not get everyone their pieces. Makes sense, right?!"

Odori stepped forward, sword unsheathed, and with a single swipe cut through the doors of the cell Toshiro, Ally, and Heiji had shared.

"Please tell me you picked up my weapon, too, Fuji." Heiji approached her with hands folded in prayer after she had delivered Toshiro his two swords, and Fuji smirked, reaching into the top of her jumpsuit, between her breasts, and pulling out a cell phone.

"The rest is in the car, Heiji-chan."

"Ha, after that this thing's now my favorite!" Heiji exclaimed, swiping the screen on the phone and dialing in a number. "We're in Italy, so why not have a pizza delivered, right? How about all of the delivery places in Naples?"

"This really a time for you to be hungry?" asked Toshiro.

"Well I have to keep my figure somehow!" Heiji snapped in return. "That should be a good distraction…"

"How about shutting down the security system, Heiji-chan?"

"..You know this thing's a phone and not a magic wand, right Fuji?" Heiji sighed, waving the phone.

"Heiji-chan, in your hands anything is magic!" Fuji exclaimed as she side-stepped into the cell Ryo and Odori had been in and began to unbutton the jumpsuit. "Now no one peep! I'm shy!"

"Wouldn't dream of it!" Odori grunted as she fended off a guard's bullet with her sword.

The officers surrounded them on either side. In spite of this Fuji whistled as she slid into her red dress, ignored Ally's befuddlement as she stopped him from beating a guard into submission to zip up the back of the dress, and finally stepped into her red high heels.

"Looks like I'm back!" the exclaimed.

"LUPIN!" came a growl from down the hall, and Fuji gasped with excitement.

"That's Zenigata?! Already! He's a fast one!" she giggled, sticking her head out of the prison cell to watch before she admired the stack of knocked-out guards in front of her.

"Any time you want to join Fuji, you're more than welcome!" Ryo shouted as she struck a guard with the butt of her gun, having run out of bullets minutes ago. "Really! Anytime!"

"You read my mind! Everyone follow me!" Fuji called out, hopping over a pile of the aching bodies and running down the hall.

"I got something in my eyes!" Leo exclaimed as he did his best to follow Max in their pursuit. "Hey, Zenigata, wait up!"

"LeBlanc, we can't…" but Max stopped his own running, and broke out into another coughing fit. "This crap's in my lungs…"

"Goodbye, boys!" Fuji called down from the hallway. "I think I'm going to make a stop in Dubai next? I'd bring your sunscreen, it can get really hot in June!"

"Lupin, stop!" Max cried. "This is evading arrest!"

"Well I didn't think it was forgery!" she giggled, bounding down the hall when the last guard had been toppled to the ground.

The backup Max had radioed for would have been able to stop the six, had it not been for the fact that the roads were blocked with the cars and scooters of a sea of delivery drivers.

They rushed down to the impound lot, and Odori sliced through the fence while Fuji bent down in front of the lock of the office. "...Hrm… I lost my nail pick back there… Say, Ally-chan, do you think you could do something about this for us?"

He nodded, and Fuji stepped back, squealing in delight as with a set of kicks the doorknob to the door went sailing. Another alarm went off, and Fuji's smile only grew as she rushed into the office.

"I've got your keys!" she shrieked out to Toshiro and Ryo, waving two sets after she emerged. "And I even picked myself up something, too!"

"Of course you did," Ryo sighed as Fuji tossed her the keys. Ally knew better when he climbed into the back seat of his sister's car this time, and caught both of the sandals that she threw over her shoulder.

"She's hyper as always… And I barely remember the last time I saw Fuji…" Toshiro admitted as Odori climbed on the back of his scooter.

"You weren't exactly in the best place…" Odori muttered, and Toshiro could barely hide his flinching.

"Nah, I really wasn't…" he admitted. He swerved his scooter to the side as a black Maserati pulled up a little too close to him, and Fuji chuckled and revved up the engine.

"I'm not that big on the color, but she purrs like a dream~!" Fuji exclaimed. "Plus it's a Ghibli, and if that's not paying homage, I don't know WHAT is, hehe!"

"A "Ghibli" is Libyan for a type of wind, Fuji," Ryo sighed.

"Already putting that degree to use I see!"

"No… Ari taught me…"

"Oh… Well, I'm still putting a Totoro sticker on the back of this thing when we're out of here," Fuji replied. "Now are we ready?"

"Yeah, one thing—Those nice cops you blocked now are out of their cars with their nice little guns drawn," Ally muttered.

"Not for long." Fuji had been applying her lipstick while looking in a compact mirror and after putting away the tube of light pink, she turned the mirror, shining it towards the sun.

The officers lined up outside their police cruisers didn't see the flashing, but they felt jolts of pain as their rifles were, one by one, shot out of their hands. The bullets came too quick for them to shout for the other officers to run for cover in order to spare themselves.

The ones who did pick up their guns found, much to their horror, that the bullet had shot straight through the barrel.

And up from a lone tower in a church was a faint stream of cigarette smoke. A woman in a dirty white suit rose and spied for anyone she had missed, and then began to disassemble her sniper rifle.


	3. Mama's Pearl

"What do you have for us, Heiji-chan?" Fuji called out from her Maserati.

"Venice airport? We're a bunch of missionaries," Heiji replied.

"How are we getting the cars on?"

"We're borrowing a millionaire's jet. He also happens to be transporting some cars from his collection. Isn't that nice of him?" Heiji chuckled as he continued typing away. "Making our flight plan now! Hope you guys don't mind if I take the liberty of picking the in-flight movie."

"What religion?" asked Ryo.

"Does it matter? Just start handing them pamphlets and they'll be out of your way in no time," Ally chuckled.

"Isn't this nice? All of us, getting along together?" Fuji sighed wistfully.

"…Fuji…" Ryo started cautiously.

"Yes….?"

"This doesn't have anything to do why exactly we're here, does it?"

"Ohhhh, Ryo-san, just let me have my fun!" Fuji sighed, looking down at her nails on the wheel of her new prize. "Toshiro-chan, could you perhaps help me a teeny bit with fixing my nails when we get to the safe house, could you?"

"I was hoping to Fuji," Toshiro laughed.

 

******

"Well, can't wait to hear about this in the office… Officially just like the old bastard now with Lupin slipping away like that…" Max stood in front of the mirror of this bathroom, his tie, suit jacket, and shirt hanging up from the shower rod while he finished wiping his face off in the mirror. He'd nearly gotten all of the flecks of purple off of his face and shirt, while Leo still held up his phone to himself as he used the camera as an aide in helping him wipe his own face off. Much to his chagrin, the flecking remained in his hair, no matter what he did.

"What'd she even make this out of…?!" Leo muttered, throwing the comb back into the tub while he sat on its edge.

"You're gonna have to get that haircut the chief was talkin' about, pal…" Max muttered, taking a towel from the rack and handing it to him. "Close the toilet seat and sit down… Think I've got some scissors in my luggage."

"W-What? You?"

"Relax. I studied to be a hairdresser for a few months," Max muttered as he rifled through the bag near the sink and retrieved a small set of scissors. "I'm just glad that I seemed to get away unscathed… It's like she was aiming for you."

"How's a guy who's a hairdresser wind up at Interpol?" Leo asked after he took a seat as Max had told him to.

"Hairdressing, accounting, and even a rabbinical school. That was my last one before I finally decided to become a cop… And I guess I'm pretty good at the cop thing. Jeeze… This stuff's in deep…"

"So you're Jewish?"

"I try my best," he replied. "How the hell about you?"

"M-Me?"

"How's a guy like you, a little wimpy paper pusher… Know how to drive something like that? And hotwire it? No offense."

"Hehe, none taken. I just... Really like racing movies." Leo gave a shrug. "And I'm a quick study of things. I dated a guitarist for two months years ago and I can still play pretty well."

Leo felt his chest tighten as he watched a large chunk of his bangs fall onto his lap.

"H-Hey, be careful with those things! That took me a while to grow!"

"Just let me work…" Max sighed. "You know, I don't get it…"

"What's that?"

"I got to meet Lupin's girlfriend today. Maybe still girlfriend? I dunno. But she graduated from Harvard... And was pretty hot on top of it… Seemed like a nice enough girl… So why go and leave that behind?"

"Well, I heard he wasn't right after that bank heist."

"Right. The one where he shot the guard protecting that kid… That was in my file about him. What there was about him. He seems like he's a lot lower-key than his dad was…"

"People make dumb decisions sometimes…"

"Yeah. I guess we're all running from something."

"What? Are you Zenigata?" Leo chuckled, and his smile gradually fell as he watched no change in the level of concentration Max used in cutting his partner's hair.

"We're all running from something," was the only reply Max gave. He stood back and tilted his head from side to side. A few snips here and there, and he shoved the scissors in his back pocket. "Good as I'm gonna get without clippers. Let me know what you think."

Leo stood up in the mirror and was aghast at the person he saw looking back at him.

Max had cut it short.

Very short.

...Lupin short.

With a darker shade of brown and without glasses, he would have been a dead-ringer for him.

"Not bad, right?" Max twirled the scissors proudly in his hand and chuckled. "Almost makes me sad I got kicked out for punching someone on wig making day."

"Y-You what?"

"He said A-line hairstyles were tacky. I made him see stars with a jug full of conditioning product and a fist full of nickels from my tip jar. Ugh. I'm headed to bed, LeBlanc. Today's been traumatizing and exhausting. We have an early flight tomorrow, so I hope you'll do the same."

Leo waited until Max shut the door to remove the glasses and look at himself once more. It wasn't like he needed them to see the person in front of him.

"He really doesn't see it?... I… Are you dumb or just dense, Zenigata?..."

*******

An Undisclosed Condominium, Dubai

Ally let grumble of protest through gritted teeth, and Toshiro leaned forward and pushed up the Jigen's jaw again.

"You're going to ruin the cast…" Toshiro muttered, wiggling the tray inside Ally's mouth to check the hardness of the mold.

Another muffled grumble from Ally, and Toshiro shook his head and busied himself with cutting away at the excess polymer around the one he had labeled "Odori".

"For fake teeth. You should know that by now. For God's sakes, you play hockey…" Toshiro replied. "We aren't going to be able to move around as freely as before. Not until Naples gets straightened out. Right, Fuji? …Fuji?"

Fuji Lupin had spread herself out on one of the long, black leather couches in the living room as she busied herself with a magazine, and she glanced up from it briefly before returning to the latest celebrity gossip.

"Which Lars Von Trier starlet do you guys think I'd be? That isn't a quiz in here, but I've always wondered…"

"FHUYJEE!" came a growl from Ally's otherwise occupied mouth.

Odori hadn't taken a seat on one of the couches. Instead, she had opted for the plush red carpet on the floor. The samurai opened one curious eye, and put a pause on her meditation.

"Man these firewalls are great!" Heiji was slumped over towards the back of the room, closer to the grand piano Yukiko had sat down at to hem the sleeve of her suit jacket. All around him were laptops, routers, and hard drives buzzing away while he alternated typing and chuckling.

"What in the hell are you even doing?" Yuki asked, leaning over to try to make sense what was on the screen in front of Heiji.

"Eh, you'd be less culpable in court if I didn't tell you," Heiji answered. "Let's just say that it's not very legal but it's very fun."

"Oh my God seriously if it's some kind of weird porn and I'm coming into the room put it away right now, Heiji," Ryo demanded as she walked out of one of the bedroom suites, still towel drying her hair as she did. She took a seat next to Fuji and ripped the magazine away from the Lupin, and Fuji, in turn, crawled across Ryo's lap and reached for it with a whine.

"It's not porn… On this one…"

"Oh my GOD," Yukiko groaned, and rose from her seat to join the other women on the couch.

"Okay, Fuji, now's your time to tell us exactly what's going on. Exactly why we're here." Fuji halted her pawing for her magazine and draped like a rag doll across Ryo as Ryo spoke, and gave another small moan. This was followed by immediately hopping off the couch and onto her feet, with enough quickness that the surprised Yukiko stuck herself with the needle she was using to sew.

"Dammit! Warn a bitch!"

"Sorry, Yu-ki-chan~! Ryo-san, I'm so glad you asked me! It's all part of my wonderful plan!"

Ally signaled to Toshiro if he could remove the cast yet, and Toshiro only shook his head and gave Fuji the attention the others were.

With a flick of her wrist, Fuji revealed several slips of paper, all of which she passed out to the group one by one.

"What's this?" asked Toshiro.

"A slip of paper," Yukiko snorted in return, and the paper Toshiro had been holding sailed and struck her on the side of her fedora.

"That is what you will make in if you can make the one-year commitment to join me," Fuji replied.

Toshiro's eyes went wide, and he rushed over to retrieve his crumpled paper from Yukiko's side and unfold it.

Ryo studied the paper and bit her lower lip, almost dreading the question, "…Commitment to… What?"

"Bring the gang back together!" replied Fuji excitedly. This excitement didn't exactly spread through the living room as she stood in front of the silent gang, her arms waving in excitement. "…Back...?"

"Fuji… This… Is a nice idea… But I don't know if it's really the best one…" Ryo started to shake her head as she kept her eyes on the paper. "Things didn't…. Turn out so well for some of us last time when we were a gang."

Toshiro could feel several sets of eyes upon him as she said this, and he busied himself with making a cast of Yukiko's teeth.

"But that was under Ari! The Lupin the Fourth shop is under new management, and I'm making us worldwide, baby! No more of this regional garbage! I'll take this to another planet if I can figure it out! To the moon and back!"

"Well, I'll tell you right now I'm in." Yukiko gave a shrug, and passed the paper back to Fuji. "This freelancing crap blows. I'll do that for a year."

"I'm in too!" Heiji waved his slip of paper into the air happily. "I could get myself this much, probably, but the connections I could make in a Lupin gang? Now that's a lifetime of riches!"

"..It… Would be a waste to not use Zantetsuken for its purpose…" Odori said to herself slowly, eyeing the blade at her side.

"I'm gonna have to think on it…" Toshiro set down the paper and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "…Just give me a little time…"

"…I've gotta get a smoke, anyway…" This was Yukiko's excuse to follow him after he vanished through the doors of one of the other suites.

She found Toshiro out on the balcony, standing and looking out at the lights beneath them. And one the thirtieth floor, there were more lights than starts to admire.

Yukiko loosened her white tie after she walked out, and tapped her pack of cigarettes against her wrist before pulling one out. The breezes around them were warm, but not the stifling ones that had greeted them at the airport when they'd arrived.

"It remind you of home out here?" she asked as she rested her arms on the railing and looked down at the masses of cars below them.

"You can't get a decent hot dog here…" he answered, almost a bit depressed-sounding over the fact.

"You're so American now," she snorted, taking a drag of her cigarette and shaking her head. "Hey, how're your hands?"

Toshiro gave a roll of the eyes and extended them both out in front of her. While the right one was steady, the left still quivered as he held it out.

"…Not bad!" she exclaimed. "You really been working hard since I saw you last, huh?"

"…I'm sorry for anything I might have done back then to hurt you, Yuki."

"It wasn't you talkin', it was the coke half the time…"

"Or the pills. Or the crack."

"Or the meth?"

"Jesus. No. I can honestly say I never did meth. I lost enough of my soul to those other things… I just… I don't know if I'll be able to keep it together if I'm out there. If I get injured again, if I get another smashed elbow like that…"

"Hey. You'll have me there," she nudged him and smirked. "I won't let you get away with that crap for a minute."

She gave a yell as one of the breezes suddenly picked up, taking her white fedora with it, but Toshiro was quick to reach out and grab it before it was just a memory in the desert city. It revealed a pair of dark brown eyes that for a moment had actually shown something more than indifference, as well as thick, shaggy bangs that nearly fell to her nose. She gave a sigh of relief as Toshiro handed it back to her, and she shoved it down securely on her head.

"See? We need that. And we need you because Dori's still new to Zantetsuken. And because your disguises are awesome. And… I need you there. You're probably the one who drives me least nuts out of anybody."

"You have Ally and Ryo."

"Who are this point are both more successful than me and fully aware of it. So you wanna maybe come back inside, gimme a break, and at least give this a shot? What's Fuji gonna do if you break contract? Sue you?"

"Hrmm…"

"At least come back in when Ally can get that thing out of his mouth."

"Oh, it's been done for an hour. I just like the sound of Ally bein' quiet."

"Nevermind about joining. You're gonna be a dead man!" she exclaimed with a laugh.

Fuji stretched as she walked out into the living room the morning after her announcement to the group, leaving them with one bit of advice—If they wanted to join, be on the couches ready to go by eight.

"It's nine-friggin'-thirty!" Yukiko barked as Fuji strolled out to full couches.

"Well, my beauty regimen takes time! Dori-chan, I'm not sure if that sitting on the floor is a "yes" or no. It's very non-committal looking from here," Fuji admitted as she wandered over to the samurai woman. Odori gave a huff and slid onto the couch, in between Ryo and Toshiro.

"Everyone?!" Fuji gave a squeal and clasped her hands together. "I just… I can't thank you all enough!"

"Then don't, and tell us why we're here," Yukiko snapped.

"Right! Glad you asked, Yuki-chan!" Fuji opened the door of a closet and rolled out a white board with pieces of paper taped to it, as well as notes jotted down in red pen.

"You knew we all were going to say yes, weren't you?" Ryo asked, the exhaustion clear in her voice.

"I know you all wouldn't disappoint me!" she replied. "Now everyone knows I love a good pearl necklace, but I found something a little too big for a gold chain… The Beauty of the Ocean, everyone!"

With typical dramatic flair, Fuji spun the whiteboard to the other side to reveal a handmade drawing of a large green orb. Off to one side there was a stick figure in a red dress with a large chest that seemed to be dancing around the pearl.

"I'm too sober for this," Yukiko said to finally break the silence of the gang.

"Wait! Wait! The Beauty of the Ocean's on display for a limited time in the mansion of an oil tycoon! It's five feet tall, six tons, and even glows in the dark!"

"So you want an oversized nightlight?" Ally concluded.

"I want a $140 million pearl," Fuji replied, and members of the gang who had started to stand started to sit back down. "We're going to need an invite to that party, we're going to need a way to get in and transport this baby out of his mansion—And most importantly I'm going to need something cute to wear! Welcome to our first assignment, everyone!"


	4. Sky High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurt my back really bad, so was unable to update. Not to worry, going to be back to that now hopefully.

“You’re not serious…” Max paled as Leo opened up his carryon bag. Zenigata watched as two bundles of yarn, black and baby blue, were pulled out, following a pair of knitting needles and a halfway-finished piece of fabric that Max guessed was the beginnings of a scarf.

“What? I have hobbies,” Leo replied as he situated the yarn on his tray table, off to the side of his complimentary drink. “What’re you going to be doing during this trip, huh?”

But Leo already had his answer. Max had shut his eyes, put his headphones on, and Leo could hear the music blaring from them. It sounded as angry as Zenigata seemed most of the time. 

Both stopped what they were doing and reached into their pockets for their phones as they felt vibrations from them, even though they were on airplane mode.

It was an image of Fuji, poorly Photoshopped in front of what looked like a large, green marble.

“I think this will look nice in my living room,” Leo and Max both read the caption aloud, and slowly looked to one another.

“She sure doesn’t shy away from flash…” Leo’s shoulders fell, and he shoved his phone in his pocket and resumed his knitting. “Just like the third one…”

Max, meanwhile, felt his shoulders start to shake. Leo’s knitting slowed, and then finally halted, as he watched this. Wordlessly Leo reached forward, pulled out the airline sickness bag from the front of his seat, and with a flick of the wrist opened it and handed it to Max, who quietly took it, put it to his mouth, and gave a long scream into it while Leo calmly resumed his knitting, much to the quiet horror of the passing flight attendant.

 

“These look like the real deal, Heiji-chan!” Fuji squealed as she read over the invitations that had come straight from the printer, and Heiji cracked his knuckles while still cross-legged in front of his laptop and beamed a wide, Cheshire Cat-style grin. He'd been hard at work in his corner of the room, with Ally nearly tripping over his setup at least once in the process.

“Two invites?” Yukiko leaned over Fuji’s shoulder and lifted up the grin of her white fedora to examine them.

“Right! Lord and Lady di Caponi! Ally-chan’s going to be Lord!”

“W-What?” Ally had been busying himself with a card game against Odori in the living room, and bolted up from his spot. “Why am I the one getting dressed up!?”

“Because you’re the only one who speaks Italian!”

“Ryo and Yuki both speak it!”

“I know the curses and how to ask for a bathroom,” Yukiko replied. "....What? I never paid attention to Dad. He let me get away with whatever. Mom was usually the one who shouted at me, and that was in Chinese. Now that I know!"

“I’m driving the car,” Ryo added, flipping through the cards in her hand before shuffling and cutting them.

“Ally-chan, I’m going to need a good-looking man on my arm in there. Come on. It’s just a year!”

“This is already feeling like a mistake on my part…” Ally grumbled, and turned back to his game after sinking back into his spot. “I fold.”

“Can you fold in go fish?” Odori looked across to Ryo, and Ryo merely shrugged.

Ally jumped as Toshiro came up from behind him with a tape measurer and outstretched the Jigen’s arms, and then wrapped the tape around Ally’s chest from behind. Ally gripped onto Toshiro’s arm and shot him a death glare as the tall redhead went for the inseam.

“Fine. Won’t be my fault if you lose blood circulation there,” Toshiro snapped.

“All right, there’s going to be a few ground rules if we’re going to make it through a year happily. First off, no one killing each other,” Fuji began, listing off the points with her newly-manicured fingers. “Second, no severe bodily damage—Unless you kinda like it. I’m not one to judge. Third, no giving away Ari’s cover.”

“I have no issues except for that one,” replied Ally. “They shoulda let me in that damned interrogation room, I—”

“Ally-chan. I know. Ari’s got a lot going on, but we’re not going to put him in danger.”

“Fuji, I get he’s your brother, but he’s also kinda the guy trying to arrest us now…” Yukiko added hesitantly.

“Let’s do as she says…” Ryo’s voice was low, and he finally stopped shuffling the cards in her deck and shut her eyes tightly. “What Ari went through is traumatic and… We have to remember that. He was a good leader while we had him. We owe him that much.”

“Plus it’s not like he’s gonna catch us!” Fuji giggled and stuck out her tongue. “We outnumber them AND outsmart them! And do I even have to start with how cute we all are?!”

“We’re so dead…” Yukiko said to herself, and shoved her hat back down over her eyes.

 

“Woah, fancy!” Leo chuckled as Max walked out in his new suit. The brown one had been beyond repair, forcing Zenigata to finally admit he needed to buy a new one at the nearest mall. He’d opted for a gray one this time, with a slightly darker suit jacket and a light blue shirt.

“My dad let me borrow that other one…. He’s gonna be pissed…”

“You didn’t wear suits in California?”

“Not if I could help it… Where are we going to?”

“Well, if Fuji’s text was right, it’ll be this billionaire’s place… Larman? Some kind of big time jeweler. Moved from the States to Dubai about a decade ago and took his business with him. Since then it’s been booming.”

“Eh? What, he had that big rock?”

“If by “big rock” you mean pearl worth millions of dollars yeah, that’s the one. He had it flown in just for a party, looks like.”

“How the hell do rich people like that even sleep at night?”

“On very, very nice mattresses.”

“…Get your damn coat on, LeBlanc.”

Leo chuckled to himself and looked down at the image of Fuji once more while he palmed his phone in his hand. Just what was going on in that mind of hers.... If anything?

 

“I do not know this Lupin the Fourth you’re talking about.”

“C-C’mon, you’ve got to! The s—daughter of Lupin the Third! One of the most famous thieves in the world! They’re practically a dynasty!”

“You are saying a young woman is going to come in and steal a six-ton marble?” Larman, a stout, balding man with a thick mustache, looked back at the pearl in the center of the ballroom, and then burst into a fit of laughter. “You cannot be serious!” 

“Mr. Larman… I assure you, we wish this was a joke… But it’s absolutely the truth…” Leo cleared his throat and pushed on his glasses. “We’d love to offer you police protection.”

“I would love to politely decline… Hrm. You look familiar. Did your father ever work in the jewelry business?”

“N-No. Sir, please—”

“Enough. I have a lot to attend to, you gentlemen can certainly understand.”

Max lost his forced, polite smile and grit his teeth as Larman stepped away from the two and instead busied himself with an army of party planners. “Why that stupid, arrogant—”

“Come on…” Leo took Max by the shoulder, and almost immediately Max tugged out of his grasp. 

“LeBlanc, what do you think you’re doing?”

“We have to save this guy from Lupin.”

“What? Why? He clearly is better off without our help!”

“We’re Interpol. It’s what we do.”  
“…Fine. What’d you have in mind?”

Leo looked over toward the staff of waiters, and Max started to shake his head. Leo slowly nodded his, and Max began to shake his head more fervently.

“We took an oath, Zenigata.”

“It’s not like I got married!”

“Come on,” Leo whispered and started to make his way toward the large group of waiters. Max gave a groan of defeat before finally following after LeBlanc, much to his chagrin. He was really starting to miss cosmetology.

 

Lady di Caponi giggled from her spot on Lord di Caponi’s arm and brushed back her long, blonde hair as they were introduced formally in front of the large crowd of partygoers. Lord di Caponi tried to take a step backwards, back into the shadow of the hall they’d just walked out, but felt his “wife’s” leg wrap around one of his from behind, and then felt her proceed to hold it in place until he moved forward, his arm tightly linked with hers.

“I knew you were short, Ally, but with Fuji in those heels it’s like she’s dropping you off for your first day of kindergarten,” came Heiji’s chuckle from the earpieces they both wore.

Fuji felt Ally's posture immediately stiffen, and answered this with a light chuckle, “Darling, why don’t you go get us some punch? I’ll see to the hired help later.”

“Not if I get to him first—Darling,” Ally said through a forced smile. He caught his reflection in the large pearl in front of them—A Caucasian-looking man with green eyes and slicked-back brown hair. To complete his appearance of “lord” there was a single bronze medallion draped over the suit Toshiro had earlier measured him for. He shuddered and set off to find the punch bowl.

Lady di Caponi, in the meantime, did everything to make herself known in her strapless bright red dress and long, silk white gloves.

“Oh I love how this looks on me,” she said, a wide grin forming as she stared back at her reflection in the pearl. “Although I may have to go out and buy a new handbag to match it…. How’s the security going, Heiji-chan?”

“Well, a few of the guards just got knocked out via dart gun… And our transporter’s on her way.”

“How about our angry little samurai?”

“She’s getting into position.”

“And our entertainment?”

“Jackass is on the stage now. Look to the pianist.”

“Heiji-chan, don’t you think you and Toshiro-chan should sit down and hash things out already?”

“I’d honestly rather chew glass…”

“Not even for me? Eh~?”

“Excuse me?” Fuji nearly jumped at the sound of the voice behind her, and she slowly spun around to face Larman. “I saw that your date was taking a while with the punch; I took it upon myself to grab you one myself.”

“Oh, how thoughtful! Thank you!” she giggled, winked, and slowly brought the cup to her lips. “Mm… Delicious…”

“He’s your… Husband?”

“It’s a bit of an arranged thing. Really he’s more of a roommate at this point…” Fuji sighed and swirled the cup of punch in her hand.

“I see… How terrible… Would you think he would be offended if I asked you for a dance, then?”

“Oh? No… Not at all…”

From across the room Max, an empty tray against his chest and his waiter’s uniform continuing to make him itch, watched this exchange with a glare.

“Hey, Max, table six needs more of those little quiche things!” Leo puffed as he rushed by Zenigata with his own empty tray. Max smacked the tray out of Leo’s hands and glared.

“...Lupin’s right over there and you’re obsessing about some crappy quiche!”

“What? Lupin? Where?”

“The blonde dancing with Larman.”

“How do you…?”

“The boobs, mainly,” Max replied, and the tray Leo had been picking up fell back down to the ground with a clatter.

“W-What?”

“Well, look at them. They’re fantastic. The ass, too. If she wasn’t already a criminal…”

Leo suddenly felt a wave of nausea go through him as he remained crouched over his platter.

“I mean… You gotta admit, you would, right?”

“W-hat?! Gross! NO!”

Max greeted this with a raised eyebrow, and a prolonged silence between the two.

“…Huh…” the noise finally came out of Zenigata, and he opened his mouth as if to start a question, but stopped himself short when he watched the pianist on the stage stand, look to his left and right, and slip out from behind a curtain on the stage.

“Come one, they’re on the move.”

“B-But what about Fuji!?”

“She’s the distraction—Come on, we’re after Ishikawa!”

“How can you tell it’s—Nevermind. I don’t want to know…”

Toshiro tossed aside the mask he’d been wearing as he turned a corner in the large mansion, followed by the tie he’d been wearing. At the stairwell he dropped his wig, and the fake teeth followed to right outside Larman’s bedroom’s door. Leo and Max were quick on his tail all the while, Leo bringing along his serving tray and holding it in front of himself like a type of shield. 

“I think he’s in here…” Leo whispered as they both stopped in front of the double doors of the bedroom. On the count of three they both opened the doors and rushed the room. A tall figure slipped past them, and the door shut with a loud slam. Max went to open it, but found it jammed.

Leo, meanwhile, wandered over to an open safe with paperwork spilling out of it.

“Um… Max?”

“LeBlanc, I’m a little busy!”

“Max, this is…. Come here and look at this….”

“What?” Max discontinued slamming his body against the large door and wandered over to where LeBlanc was crouched in front of a large pile of papers. “What is this?”

“Passports… All of them….” Leo slowly took a seat in front of the papers and began to shake his head. “These are all from countries where they’ve been known to outsource labor.”

“What the hell…? What would he be doing with them?” Max took one of the papers that had been in Leo’s hands and skimmed over it. “Why would this guy have them?”

“It’s been claimed that when workers come over sometimes, their passports are seized. They’re trapped in the country and forced to work for only a fraction of what they were promised. I wonder if this is how all of those gems were mined…”

“Holy shit… And Lupin led us straight to them…”

“And something tells me this wasn’t an accident…”

Downstairs, while Leo and Max worked furiously to gather the papers, Fuji giggled as she was twirled around once more on the dance floor.

“Mr. Larman! I don’t think I could dance another step in these heels!”

“Well, we can always get you out of them,” he replied quietly to her, stopping and kissing her hand. "Followed by that dress, maybe."

Fuji was saved from physically gagging by the sound of a sudden rumbling from above them. Pieces of the domed ceiling started to crackle around them, and Ally went to his job, shouting and moving the panicking partygoers out of the way of the debris. Toshiro was quick to join, using the sword in either of his hands to get the point across that they needed to move. 

“W-What’s going on!?” Larman gasped, and watched, to his stunned horror, as the dome slowly lifted off the top of the building. Odori Ishikawa bounced from strap to strap on top of the building as she made sure it was secure enough for removal, while Yukiko Jigen frantically flipped through the pages of the crane while pulling at the controls. At her feet was the original operator of the machine, with the sleeping dart still sticking out of his neck.

“Next time I just hold a gun to you and make YOU do this!” Yukiko growled, and jolted in the seat when she’d finally moved the dome far enough off and dropped it to the ground, effectively destroying Larman’s garden and pool. “Man, that was such a nice rose garden, too…”

Larman watched, stunned, as two drones hovered in through the empty hole where the dome had been. Either one of them had a strap, and they crisscrossed, fitting snuggly on the sides of the pearl. Larman then saw, to his horror, that Fuji rushed away from him and scurried up on the side of the pearl, grabbing onto the hooks that were dropped when the helicopter operated by Ryo Jigen flew overhead. Fuji slid across the large stone as she attached all of the hooks, and she shrugged apologetically to Larman.

“You know… I once had a birthday where all I wanted was a magician to show up and he never did, so I can TOTALLY understand how you feel right now!” Fuji sighed and drooped her head in mock sadness. “Oh well! It’s been fun! Also, those quiche were delicious!”

“Y-You get back here!” Larman finally shrieked as the marble was slowly lifted off the ground. “Y-You--!” 

Ally and Toshiro grinned to one another, and jumped, either gripping on to a side of the pearl’s harness.

And then there was silence. The pearl, which had glowed like an all-too-close planet in the dark of the night, vanished with the sound of the helicopter blades in the night.

“I…” Larman slowly dropped to his knees, and had no words when Max and Leo walked up to him, the stacks of collected passports practically falling out of their arms.

“Mr. Larman, I think you have a little explaining to do…” Max finally said. Larman’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted to the marble floor of his destroyed mansion.

 

“Da dadada dum, dah dah dum…” a lone, echoing voice called out in the dark of the large garage, its only accompaniment the sound of a pair of designer dress shoes clicking along the floor.

The gentle singing in the dark was interrupted by a yowl as the owner of the voice smacked right into something hard covered by a very large tarp.

Lupin the Third, now a bit older, grayer, and slower, clapped his hands twice, and was still rubbing his aching forehead as the lights switched on, one-by-one, revealing the priceless convertibles, sports cars, and motorcycles on display.

Slowly the thief rose, and with a single flick of the wrist pulled the tarp off of the large, green pearl in front of him.

“Fujiko!” his voice rang through the garage. Moments later, from the open door, Fujiko popped her head in—Her hair was just as deep brown as usual, albeit with the help of dyes and an excellent stylish nowadays.

“Lupin, were you looking for the cigars you hide in there?”

“What? How did you—That doesn’t matter! Do you know anything about this?”

“Well, if I had to guess , Fuji did send that message about needing to store a few things while she looks into getting her own place.” Fujiko’s smile told Lupin that she was doing a bit more than guessing.

“I thought she meant her shoes… Not… Oh my God it’s the Beauty of the Ocean…” Lupin’s voice trailed off as it finally dawned on him. “…She stole the Beauty of the Ocean?”

“It’s all over the papers this morning. Apparently she and her gang stole it at a party late last night.”

“So that’s what they were doing…”

“And the man who was borrowing the pearl was found out to be holding people in the country against their will. Inspectors Zenigata and LeBlanc made the arrest. That’s also all over the papers.”

“LeBlanc?” Lupin blinked, and Fujiko gave a gentle nod before vanishing from the doorway.

Lupin, although older, still wore the same devilish grin as he reached out and gently touched the pearl in front of him. “Huh. Well how about that…Maybe there’s some hope after all…”


	5. The Very Thought of You

Leo LeBlanc wore a similar grin across town as he opened the paper that he’d been carrying underneath his arm. Zenigata looked so happy leading Larman out in handcuffs, and he himself had been able to keep out of many of the photographs by ducking behind Larman. The knowledge he was behind bars and scores of people now had their documents back was enough for him.

He took a break from walking down the busy Paris street and leaned against a nearby car parked outside of the Interpol offices. He was prepping to check his text messages when he heard a pounding from the window of the car, and he jumped and spun around, nearly dropping his cell phone. 

“Sorry I—Zenigata?!”

“LeBlanc?!” came the equally confused yell from the inside of the dumpy tan car stuffed full of boxes and bags.

“Are you… Living here?...”

 

A short time later Zenigata sat across from him in a café, gripping his coffee in his hands as he opted to watch the people passing the large window instead of facing LeBlanc.  
“…So yeah… A whole month… And I can’t find crap here on my budget…” 

LeBlanc had to feel for Zenigata. He dipped part of his pastry into his coffee and thought back to his own apartment.

“You can’t ask your parents for help?” The sneer Max shot him let him know exactly how foolish a question this had been, “Right… Um… Hey, Zenigata… I know it’s just been like a month of working together… But since they’re keeping us on permanently as partners for the time being on the Lupin case… Well, I have a room in my place I’m just using for storage… And, I understand being too proud and all but—”

“We’ll take my car there. You can get your food to go.”

“W-What?! Just like that?!” Leo exclaimed. Max wasted no time downing his coffee with one chug before rushing out, and without thinking Leo walked out with his pastry in mouth and coffee cup still in hand.

He had to make space for himself in the front of Zenigata’s beat up hatchback, and did so by throwing a few suitcases of clothing into the back seat and setting a cardboard box on his lap.

“So you’re really okay with living with me?”

“Yeah. Anything to get out of this cramped piece of garbage.”

“Um… I should probably warn you that I bring my work with me home a lot…. And it’s kind of everywhere.”

 

“Everywhere” was an understatement. Max stood in silence at what looked like a library that had exploded in the apartment. Everywhere were books and papers, shipping boxes and writing utensils.

“If you had cats you would officially be able to get on a show about hoarding, LeBlanc… What even IS all this?!”

“My work… Come on, I’ll show you where you can stay,” he nodded over to the hallway on the left, and Zenigata followed, carrying suitcases in either of his arms.

A leather couch sat against the wall of the storage room, and there were glass doors that led out to what appeared to be a small balcony, and other than that…. Overstuffed bookshelves.

“I thought you just moved here!”

“Well, my parents still drop by things—” Leo stopped himself and stifled his gasp. He’d completely forgotten about the occasional impromptu visits, and now felt like he needed to take a seat on the couch. “B-But I’m getting the locks changed soon so that’s all right!”

Leo thought with a roll of the eyes, ‘Like that would REALLY stop either of them…’

“I-I’ll move the bookshelves out here—I think I can rework the living room into an office. At least part of it!” 

“Where’s your kitchen at?”

“Eh?” Leo pointed back over his shoulder and Max nodded, tossing aside his jacket and heading out there like a man with a mission. “Hey. Um. Zenigata? I have to make a call to my folks, so I’ll… Just be a minute….”

“Yeah, take your time. I’m gonna start on dinner.”

“W-What?”

“Well, least I can do…”

“But it’s only noon…”

“Perfection takes time, LeBlanc…”

“All right… But fair warning, I don’t really cook much…” Leo waited until he was certain Max was gone before he slammed the door and frantically dialed on his cell phone, nearly breaking the screen as he did so. “H-hello, Mom?”

“Ari! Did you get the box I dropped off? It was more of those textbooks… I thought you would like them! I found them while making room for something your sister dropped off…”

“Yeah, that’s great Mom… You didn’t put money in this one, did you?”

“Hrm? Why would that be a problem?”

“Because I make my own…”

“Really you’re so stubborn…”

“Mom, I… Kind of have a small favor to ask you and Dad…”

“Hrm? Did you need somewhere to hide out? We can have you on a flight by—”

“I kind of need you to stop visiting my place… At all… I had someone move in with me and I wasn’t thinking about it and I—“

“...You have? Ari, that’s great! I can’t wait to meet her! I understand you wanting your privacy. I’ll keep your father out of your hair, but I want to meet her.”

“Mom, no I—“

“I have to go now, that pearl isn’t going to move itself.”

“F-Fuji left it with you?!” Leo’s voice cracked, and he stood there, listening to nothing but the dial tone, until he heard a knock from the door.

“Hey, your kitchen only has bread and mustard. I’m going out to get groceries.”

“W-What?! Zenigata, you don’t have do, you—”

“If I’m working from home tonight I’m eating, LeBlanc.”

Leo’s shoulders slumped, and he started to gently beat his head against the door after Zenigata left to pick up food for their kitchen.

 

“Babies, mommy’s home,” Fuji opened the doors of the dressing room attached to her bedroom, and she took in the rows and rows of designer clothing in front of her. Skirts, shoes, purses, dresses, blouses, and coats amongst other types of clothing in every shade and pattern, all organized by color on rows of black hangers. Fuji twirled around once and giggled, falling onto the plush white carpet of the room and feeling content to be alone in the room that smelled lightly of magnolia.

All of this was shattered, literally, by a crash and then the shouts of two men. One voice was thick and American, the other, deeper and mocking the American.

“I wonder if their mothers ever thought about eating them?” Fuji mused before rising from her spot on the floor of the safe house and making her way down the spiral staircase.

Ally had pulled Heiji into a headlock in the foyer of the large mansion, while it took both Yukiko and Odori to hold Toshiro back.

“I’m jealous Ryo-san’s in the garage…” Fuji sighed. “All RIGHT! That’s enough! Family meeting in the dining room!”

Both men were marched into the dining room on the first floor of the house in the Swiss countryside, and seated on either side of a mahogany table. Fuji sat down in between them at the head of the table, and adjusted her cropped black jacket before clearing her throat.

“All right. Now if you boys can’t learn to play nice we’re going to have a long year here.”

“Eleven months. We’re down to eleven months,” Toshiro corrected her.

“You really didn’t read all of that contract, did you?” Heiji snorted. 

“Last month didn’t count, Toshiro-chan… .But that’s beside the point. What matters is you two have some issues to work out and we’re going to work them on at this table—Hopefully before dinner, because Ally-chan’s cooking tonight and I don’t want a brawl over his lasagna.”

“I haven’t done shit to you but every time I’m near you, you act like I’m the damned enemy!” Toshiro began.

“Well maybe if you’d come around a little bit more you’d understand why I don’t want to go playing catch with you.”

“I was over every summer!”

“When you were a kid! Once you grew up you had barely anything to do with us.”

“I had… Stuff going on…”

“Our dad had a heart attack and you never ONCE showed up.”

“Listen, Heij… I don’t expect you to understand what was goin’ on… But there’s more to it than you know… I wanted to go, but…”

“You were too drugged up to do anything. You couldn't quit them long enough to get into the country to see Dad. That's how I see it.”

“Would you quit with the drugs?! I made some crappy decisions, we all do!” Toshiro slammed his fists on the table, and Fuji flinched.

“I’m done…” Toshiro rose from the table. “Just have Ally set aside some of that lasagna for me, all right, Fuji?”

Fuji nodded, “Right…” 

Toshiro was interrupted from his storming out of the house by a gun barrel poking into his side. He locked eyes with Yukiko outside the front door of the home, and sighed as she lowered her weapon, eventually shoving it in her belt behind her back before setting down the plastic bag in her hand--Presumably more groceries. Large group meant lots of runs for food. 

“You should just tell him already… You should tell all of them…” Yukiko held out her pack of cigarettes to him, and he declined by pushing the pack back towards her. “They think that you abandoned your family for drugs. You know they’d understand if you told them what was really up, right?”

“No way.. . I ain’t gonna relive that if I can.”

Toshiro followed Yukiko as they strolled away from the three-story brick mansion, towards a lake that overlooked snowcapped mountains in the distance.

“See… I don’t think about it like reliving it… It’s just remembering them…”

“That’s one way to look at it… But it’s not the way I see it,” Toshiro replied. “Dori’s out practicing again.”

“She wants to make sure that she’s worthy to carry that sword.”

The Ishikawa girl was standing, Zantetsuken at her side, in a halo of bamboo stalks (Odori's single request when Fuji asked what would make each member of the team comfortable in their hideout--That, and a six-pack box of a chocolate bar Odori was fond of). With a single flash they all started to slide off from their stalks, and they all fell to the ground in halves in front of her.

“She’s wanted it for years…”

“You know… I think more than anyone Dori would understand… You should at least tell her about it. She knows what it’s like for people to have to make rough decisions… Her biological parents had to make one, after all.”

“…I hate when I can’t argue with you.”

“Hey, I never lie to you, you can say that.”

“Pray for me…”

“I’ll say a rosary,” Yukiko chuckled from beneath her fedora, and busied herself with walking down to the dock to enjoy the sunset over the mountains.

“Hey, um… Dori?” Odori stopped short of cutting through another row of bamboo when she heard Toshiro, and sheathed her sword while Toshiro stood in front of her. “Do you… Have a minute or two? This won’t take long…”

He took her silence as permission, and shifted from one foot to the other.

“Well… I just… You know when I was in New York I was always busy doing stuff. There’s… One thing that I only told Mom and Dad. When I was in New York, I was—“

”We have lasagna and a mission to go over, everyone!” Fuji called out, sticking out nearly half her body from the window of her bedroom.

“…Can it wait until after lasagna?” Odori asked aloud. "...I care, but I know that there'll be none left if we don't get there in time."

"I didn't know you liked Western food."

"...It's Ally's cooking. I'm not made of stone."

“You'd fool me sometimes. Yeah… Yeah, we’ll talk then,” Toshiro nodded.

 

“Where did all of this come from?!” Leo barely recognized the kitchen of his apartment as he moved from one cabinet to the next, opening each of them to find either food or kitchen supplies. “You bought dinnerware?”

“It was on sale… You had one plate and a cup… I thought it’d be awkward to share.”

“Hey, what’re you cooking, anyhow?” Leo leaned over the shorter man’s shoulder as Max busied himself chopping, and Zenigata pointed towards the dining room wordlessly with his knife. “…Banished from my own kitchen, I get it…”

When he arrived at the dining area, hands in his pockets, he could barely believe the state of it. A dining room table that had once been weighed down with books was now clean and polished, revealing its original glass top. “A-And when the hell did you have time to clean this all?! ....Wait, this is glass?”

“I work fast, LeBlanc.” Max held out a tray in his hands as he entered the new, clean dining area. “Grilled chicken with new potatoes, baby carrots, and a side salad. There’s a lemon cake cooling right now. Not bad for only having a couple of hours. Usually I give the chicken overnight to marinate, but I was on a time constraint.”

“Zenigata… This is… Unbelievable!” Leo was awestruck at the meal Max laid out before him.

“I might’ve flunked Spanish, but at least I can cook a chicken,” Max replied as he took a seat across from Leo, who was almost in tears while eating his chicken.

It was everything he missed from Ally’s cooking and more.

“This almost makes me not want to charge you rent, Zenigata!”

“Eh? Really?”

“Almost… Sorry for getting your hopes up… But I definitely wouldn’t mind paying a majority as long as you can keep the kitchen stocked.”

“Give me your Netflix password and we’ve got a deal.”

“You drive a hard bargain…”

“Say, LeBlanc… Just so we’re clear… I um… Figured it out.”

Leo swallowed a chunk of the chicken hard and then started on one of the potatoes on his plate, “What? My Netflix password?”

“No. The… Little secret you’ve been hiding.” 

Leo started to choke on his food—Everything good was gone from the meal, and it was now going to be the death of him. With a few punches to his chest he dislodged the potato, and looked up at Max in a panic. “Y-You did?”

“Yeah… Just… Haven’t been able to approach it I guess. But I’ve been meaning to, and if we’re going to be living together I guess there’s no better time. I figured it out a little while ago.”

“W-When?!”

“A little while after I gave you that haircut…. I guess if it had to be a moment, it’d be when we were at that party in Dubai. I mean, it’s okay. I’m from San Francisco, so we’re pretty open that thing, you know?”

“What’s that got to do with San Francisco?”

“If you lived there you’d get it… I just want to let you know that this doesn’t change anything between us as partners.”

“I-It doesn’t?”

“Not at all. I know we’re not the closest, but… I get the feeling different… I just wanted to let you know that I support you.”

Leo shook his head a bit, to make sure he was hearing this correctly.

Max set down his knife and fork and continued, “However you want to live your life is fine by me. I know that we’re supposed to be there to enforce the law, but that’s something I’ve never agreed with. So I’m glad things are finally changing.”

“They are? Where the hell is THAT changing?”

“Well, all over, back in America. Some places are slower than others to adapt, but change is slow.”

“…Wait. Zenigata, what are you talking about?”

“Well, you being gay. What the hell are you talking about?”

“….Wait. WHAT.”

 

The lasagna hadn’t stood a chance. A pot of coffee was passed around after it had been devoured, and Fuji took a spot at the front of the room, laser pointer in hand. A projector rose from the middle of the dining room table, and she waved her hands dramatically as “A Lupin IV” production flashed on the screen.

“I would like to welcome everyone to our next assignment—In the spirit of the Fourth of July and all of the people here who live in the U.S. part of the time, we’re heading to America! Toshiro, we’ll be able to get that hot dog you wanted, because we’re going to be in your neighborhood!”

“W-What?” Toshiro ‘s mind had been trailing off, but he snapped back to reality as Fuji announced this.

“There’s an exhibit of a Japanese artist… Specifically this.” On cue, the slides changed on the screen, revealing an ukiyo-e image of a one-eyed creature grinning fiendishly. Other images of equally grotesque monsters flashed by, and all watched numbly until it stopped on an image Toshiro recognized as Raigo—A rat-like creature that had been a monk nibbling away at his own scrolls. “The Kaibutsu Ehon—Illustrated by Nabeta Gyokuei. Normally in its home court, BUT on exhibit at a small gallery in New York for a period of time. A period of time we’re going to spend protecting it.”

“…I must’ve accidentally put something in that lasagna, because I thought I heard you—”

“You heard right, Ally-chan~!”

“What, already we’re turning into the good guys?” Yukiko laughed and slumped down in her chair, allowing for her to pull down her hat over her head and stick a cigarette in her mouth. Fuji walked over and coolly plucked the cigarette away from the Jigen and tossed it in a nearby cup of coffee.

“Nothing personal, Yuki-chan, but I’m not going to have you smelling up my new place.”

“Dictator…”

“Ignoring the lady in white and moving on! Being beautiful, I love beautiful things—So nothing annoys me more than someone who’s intent on destroying something beautiful.”

“I don’t know if the word you’re looking for is “beautiful,” Fuji,” Ryo was hesitant as she attempted to describe the piece, and reached over to grab more milk for her coffee.

“All in the eye of the beholder, Ryo-san. In any event, we have an issue where a group of Rat Clan members are wanting to tear out this page in particular, citing it as rightfully theirs.”

“The Rat Clan?” Heiji and Odori looked to one another from the table, but neither said anything. Neither dared.

Toshiro cleared his throat, rose from his seat, and brushed off his jeans and sweatshirt, “Well, Fuji, this has been fun, but I think I’m out. It’s been a great couple of weeks full of laughs, but um… How about you go screw yourself? I’ll catch everyone later.”

“Or not…” Heiji muttered to himself.

“Toshiro…” Yukiko’s voice was stern and even from beneath the hat. “Just come out with it.”

“Toshiro-chan, I thought you’d like the excuse to really show that Rat Clan! They were such trouble for your family growing up!”

“There were attempts to kidnap you, from what I was always told,” Odori added.

“I’m not gonna talk about this with everyone in some tacky dining room.” 

Fuji mouthed the word “tacky” and furrowed her brow. Ally reached back in his seat and flipped the switch, turn the chandelier back on in the large room. 

“I’m not gonna deal with the Rat Clan again.”

“When did you deal with them the first time?” Heiji turned around in his seat, and Toshiro slowly closed his eyes, and then his fists.

“Goddammit, Toshiro! Just tell them what happened!” Yukiko barked. “Tell them before I do!”

“They… They found me in New York and it didn’t go of so well, all right? Just… I tried to get revenge on them the first time and… I don’t want anyone else hurt, okay?”

“…What happened?” Heiji asked in a much quieter and gentler voice than he could ever remember using with Toshiro.

“They… Um… You guys remember Julia?”

Odori nodded, “She’s the one who you stayed with when you decided to stay in New York, yes.”

“Well they… Found out about her and… I came home and it was just…. It’d been hours ago. I would have had to have been there hours ago to save her.”

“They killed your roommate?” Ryo whispered.

“They killed my wife,” Toshiro nearly choked out.

Odori’s cup slipped from her hand and onto the floor. No one noticed that the handwoven white rug was now coated in fresh coffee.


	6. Memories

Seventeen Years Ago

The play was over there, but Toshiro Ishikawa, who had just turned twelve a few days ago, remained there, awestruck. He had never seen so many people gathered inside the large theater. He’d barely understood any of the talking—His English wasn’t the best. Occasionally he had tugged on Goemon’s sleeve, and the samurai--his father, who he was really only still getting to know--leaned down and translated for him.

They’d been seated in the back, out in the shadows. Jigen had taken Yukiko, Ryo, and Ryo’s mother to see some of the sights around town, while Fujiko had dragged Lupin on a shopping spree with the twins, also taking along Heiji for the afternoon.

And Toshiro sat in-between Goemon and Amaya, a woman that Goemon had introduced as his fiancée, when the samurai had first shown up at the old family home.

“What did you think, Toshiro?” she grinned, and Toshiro couldn’t even find the words. He still couldn’t believe she was related to the screaming man in the trench coat who chased them around all of the time.

“I want to be an actor.” He wasn’t sure why he thought it, or why he admitted it, but he announced this while still staring down at the now-empty stage.

He overheard them talking later, in the lobby of the theater. There were exchanges of “just being excited” to “the heart wants what it wants”. The main debate appeared to be how serious to take what Toshiro had said.

He hadn’t been one to say things lightly when he spoke—That much they knew. It had taken the boy a year to get a sense of humor of any kind. When he told his first knock-knock joke to Jigen, and the gunman had nearly fallen off of his couch from the shock of it all.

He found himself wandering back into the theater, managing to sneak past the ushers along the way, even though he was one of the more unusual-looking patrons in his blue cotton kimono and longer black hair.

He was able to climb on the stage without being bothered; the crew had yet to come to check to see if anything needed adjusting.

Before him there was still a prop sword from where the battle had taken place on the last act. Looking around and making sure he was the only one on the stage, he slowly knelt down and picked up the blade, finding it much lighter than the ones he usually worked with. He swung it a few times to get used to its weight before thinking back to the fight—Did he want to be the hero or villain?

The hero. He didn’t have to fall on the ground if he was the hero. He followed through, remembering as many of the steps as he could, and even jumping on the faux stone wall that the hero had during the climax of the fight. He didn’t notice the audience on the side of the stage until he heard a giggle come from a girl, and then he stumbled and slipped off of the wall. 

“Oh gosh, are you okay?!” She rushed forward and knelt down in front of him, and he started to nod as he sat up on the floor. It looked as though he was the villain after all.   
She helped him stand, and he began to adjust his kimono. He quickly handed her the sword and, red-faced, started to rush off the stage.

“Wait!” This word he knew. He turned around to look back at her. It was strange seeing her, the girl he recognized as playing the teenage daughter, out of her brown wig, revealing a head of sloppily-dyed pink hair, but still in her Victorian garb.

“What’s your name?” she asked, tilting her head. “I’m Julia… Do you… Speak English?”

“I speak a little English,” he repeated like he’d practiced. “…Toshiro.”

“Toshiro? Like Toshiro Mifune!” she snapped her fingers, and her eyes lit up. “The samurai, right?!”

“Right,” he nodded. He then watched as she made some motions that he assumed was her attempt at trying to mimic Mifune’s sword style. It was less than successful.

“So you wandered here? All by yourself?”

“…Yes….”

“Really? Your parents were okay with that?!”

“…Yes….”

He hadn't understood the last two things she'd told him, but she seemed receptive of the answered. 

“Well, let’s give you a tour!” she giggled, ushering him to follow her behind the stage. 

"Tour" he understood at least.

It was all chaos. People were running around with props, the orchestra sat around drinking water and fine-tuning their instruments, and the actors were gathered around by makeup, sitting in a circle of chairs and joking with one another.

“Guys, look what I found!” she announced happily, stepping to her side and holding her hands out to “present” Toshiro. The boy immediately side-stepped, nearly standing behind her.

“You’re working your way up from stray cats, Julie!” giggled one of the women in the group, and Julia rolled her eyes and headed over to the makeup mirrors, sitting down at one. Toshiro was sure to follow close to her, looking back at the actors occasionally.

“So how did you get on stage?” she asked as she pulled her hair out of its pigtails, letting it fall to her chin. “…Why were you on stage?”

“I… Want to act,” he repeated, taking his time to remember the proper tense of all the words.

“Really? Future actor. Well, we have a summer program coming up! Maybe your parents would sign you up for it.”

“Toshiro!” On command his father and Amaya hurried into the crowded backstage, the nervous manager following them all along the way, his clipboard still in hand.

“What were you doing running off?” Goemon continued, and Toshiro pointed to Julia.

“She said I could act,” he replied in his native tongue, pointing to Julia.

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Amaya said again.

 

“I could put a brick in my hat and beat you with it, Fuji,” said Yukiko as she laid out on the long couch, not minding her shoes were on the imported leather.

“I didn’t think he’d take it so bad! I thought he would want some revenge!” Fuji explained, her voice honest in its confusion. “And is my dining room really that tacky? I’m going to be so mad if that interior decorator screwed me over when I just got this place…”

“Fuji, I love you, but you can be terrible with knowing what other people want…” Ryo sighed.

“It’ll be all right, Ryo-san! I’ll just get him a bottle of wine once he cools down! Piece of cake!”

“Tch. I could explain to you all day why that’s one of the worst gifts to give a recovering addict, but I think I’ll let your reptile brain sort it out for itself,” Yukiko replied.

“C-Come one, don’t everyone be mean to me! I just figured that this would give him some closure and we could also help ourselves in the meantime!”

“Help our—Oh my God, you selfish slug--You want that book,” Ryo realized, holding her face with one of her hands. “…I’m getting a headache.”

“Well I’m not running a charity! Come on, guys—The Rat Clan’s always been hanging over his head anyhow! It would be nice for that not to be a thing anymore, right? Right?”

“You’re gonna have to ask him, Fuji.”

“Yuki-chan, you’ve always been good with this sort of thing with him! You don’t think you—”

“I talked him into joining up with us. That was a challenge in itself. I’m good but you’re asking for a miracle worker, Fuji.”

“I’ll go.” The three women looked up and into the hallway, and Fuji climbed over the couch, stepping onto Yukiko’s stomach with one of her heels in the process, before jumping off of the back and running to Heiji. She squealed and wrapped her arms around to hug him, nearly making Ishikawa drop his laptop as she did so.

“Heiji-chan is the best!”

“I think I have a puncture in my liver…” Yukiko groaned.

“Well, you have been abusing it for years with cheap liquor… So it probably doesn’t know the difference is the good news,” said Ryo coolly as Yukiko rolled over to her side.

“Just keep quiet, all right?” Heiji passed his laptop to Fuji, and she nodded, taking a seat dutifully on the floor outside of Toshiro’s room after she and Heiji had arrived at it. After a few moments she opened the laptop, and just as quickly shut it.

“Really, that’s a work computer, Heiji-chan!” she giggled to herself.

“…H-Hey…” Toshiro didn’t look up from the pair of swords he was polishing at the desk of the room when Heiji entered. “…So… I’ve been kind of a dick to you for… Our whole lives…”

“I didn’t exactly stop you…” Toshiro answered after what felt like an eternity of quiet from his side. “…I didn’t want them to follow after you guys. I didn’t get that until I grew up. So… That’s why I stopped coming around. Well, that and the drugs, but... I promise I wanted to see you guys more than anything. I figured they didn’t know I was in New York, so they’d leave everyone alone. Then they found me, told me I needed to join with them, and I beat the shit out of a group of them. And that happened with Julia, and then everything happened with Dad… I couldn’t handle all of that at once. I ain’t perfect.”

“Dad really made some bad choices in women before Mom, huh? So… Why didn’t you tell anyone about you and Julia?”

Toshiro looked up from his spot at the desk and turned around in his chair to Heiji. “Let me show you how it worked out in my mind. Hey, Dad! Long time no see! Hey, you know that nice lady who’s like, five years older than me? Totally asked her to marry me last month. Yeah, at eighteen? Pretty cool, right? She said yes. Why’s your pacemaker making that funny sound? You near a microwave again?”

Heiji couldn’t help but snort at this, and Toshiro smirked.

“At least you got someone to marry you.”

“What, you can’t? Isn’t dating all on computers now?”

“I’ve had some luck, I’m kind of not the ideal long term.”

“Maybe for what you’ve been lookin’ for… Branch out.”

“I feel like you’re telling me to lower my standards.”

“Maybe just look for someone that ain’t Fuji.”

“Y-You knew about that?!”

“Amaya told me.”

What no one told either of the Ishikawa brothers was that Fuji Lupin, at that moment, stood crouched beside the door, her ear pressed to it.

“So he DOES have a crush. Ah, poor Heiji-chan,” she sighed, drooping her head. “You just can’t help good taste.” 

“You kind of follow her around like a puppy,” Toshiro continued from the other side of the door, while Heiji’s mouth twitched.

“B-Bastard… So will you do your brother a favor and help out with this?”

“Even though you’ve been a dick to me your entire life?”

“Yes.”

“…Yeah. Let’s do this. But if I go for a kill, no one gets to stop me.”

“Deal… Now no more talks about heavy crap like this. I feel like years were taken off of my life…” Heiji admitted, holding onto his chest as Toshiro sheathed his swords. Toshiro looked toward the door of his bedroom, and saw a shadow move across it. He smirked and nudged his brother on his way out of his bedroom.

“Fuji, I’ll join you—But I get the right to override any crappy decisions you make,” Toshiro announced as he walked back out to the living room.

“Yay I got my way!” Fuji sang as she went to climb over the couch again. This time Yukiko was prepared, and reached out and gripped Fuji by the heel she intended to set on her stomach. The gunwoman pushed back, and Fuji, with a yelp, flipped onto the carpet.

“I can’t have you keep using me as a stepladder. I need that uterus you keep tap dancing all over!” Yukiko growled, sitting up from her spot while Fuji laid sprawled out on the floor, rear up in the air. Ryo calmly reached over and tugged Fuji’s skirt back down just as quickly as Toshiro and Heiji both looked away from the sight at the same time, their faces slightly reddened.

 

Max found himself shuffling through the kitchen of the apartment in the middle of the night, hungry and failing to get back on a regular sleep schedule after a night out. He still smelled like cigarettes, he realized much to his chagrin. He pulled off his glasses and rinsed his hair off in the sink of the kitchen before misusing one of the dishtowels to dry it. He moved to wiping off his face as he pulled open the door of the fridge and searched for the best leftovers. This was halted as he heard muffled yelling in the dark, and slowly shut the door to the fridge. He found one of the guns he and LeBlanc had hidden throughout the home in the fruit bowl, and reached in, pulling out his weapon before continuing down the hall.

He stationed himself in front of Leo’s door, the source of the screams. It didn’t dawn on Max until he burst through the door, screaming “Interpol!,” that Leo might have had company over on his day off, and was relieved that this wasn’t the case. It was just LeBlanc, who was writhing around in the bed. Max shoved his piece back in his belt and wandered over to his follow inspector. After a moment of wondering what exactly to do, he reached down and began to shake Leo awake. 

He wasn’t prepped for Leo to reach out and grip onto him, making him fall back on the bed.

It took Leo a few moments to realize where he was, or what he was doing and with who. He quickly scrambled away from Zenigata as he realized he was holding the inspector, and Max remained there, laying on the bed in the awkward position he’d been forced into, for a moment while he processed this, until he sat up and began to formulate what exact questions he’d ask LeBlanc.

“Zenigata? Why are you up? And why are you dressed like that?” Max was surprised that the first question came from the still-panting Leo, and Max looked down at himself for the first time, realizing this was probably the first time he’d been out of “Interpol wear”.

“I don’t wear a suit all the time, you know,” he replied. His black dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and this was paired with a pair of dark red pants and a pair of black shoes. “I just went out to check out a few clubs.”

“You go to those?”

“I have hobbies!”

“I… I figured… I just didn’t take you for the partying type, I guess.”

“What the hell were you doing, LeBlanc?”

“I… Sometimes it just happens.”

“It hasn’t whenever I’ve been in a hotel room with you.”

Leo gripped on the sheets and, almost sheepishly, admitted, “It just tends to happen when I’m on my own. I don’t know why…”

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah. Should be…. Sorry about this, Zenigata…”

“Yeah, just… Don’t hurt yourself or anything, okay? I’ll be out in my room if you need me…” Max quietly shut the door behind him, headed to the couch that was his new room, and plopped down on it. He reached into his pocket and unfolded the number that had been hastily written down for him. Followed by “come on over any time” scrawled under it with a smiley face. 

“Not tonight, I guess,” he said to himself, tossing aside the paper, turning on his side, and doing his best to doze off in the new home.

 

“Wow! Would you look at that!?” Fuji jumped up and down on the dock of the ferry and squealed. “The Statue of Liberty!”

“What’s with the bouncing on the walls? You’ve been here before, Fuji!” Ryo laughed.

“I know, but it’s still exciting!” she replied, and tossed her phone to Ally. Jigen fumbled with this and nearly dropped it over the ferry's side before gripping onto it. “Ally-chan, take my photo for me!”

“Wow, we don’t even need a cover we look so much like a stereotypical group of Japanese tourists,” Heiji chuckled as he leaned against the railing of the ferry. “That thing looks smaller than I pictured.”

“Hey, not everything can be Tokyo Tower—We’re getting you guys some real pizza once we hit land!” Toshiro called out, a grin on his face. Since landing at the airport something had seemed different about the actor, and this was only magnified by his near-brawl with Fuji earlier in the week.

The pizza place Toshiro took them to was squeezed in between a Scientology center and a hotel not that far from Times Square. This was enough to make everyone take pause, but he walked past without batting an eye and right into the restaurant, which was little more than a hole in the wall. The group was spread out between two tables, and Fuji laid out the game plan for their attack using the salt and pepper shakers, as well as a survey handed to her by one of the men standing outside the Scientology center.

“Do you enjoy reading railway timetables?” Ally read aloud from his survey before Fuji snatched it from his hands and folded it to make a crude version of the book. “Hey, how am I supposed to answer that now!?”

“Hey if you get to a level high enough, that means we could all have an excuse to fly out to Florida and visit headquarters!” Heiji exclaimed.

Fuji ignored this, and only leaned inward around the group to lower her voice, “All right, so the way I look at it, we enter through the back, since mine and Dori’s boobs make air vents hard to crawl through.”

“Dori’s?” Yukiko did a double take to the samurai, who flushed a bit but said nothing. Fuji reached over and giggled, placing her arms over Odori’s shoulders.

“Sure, we’re the same size, believe it or not! But she’s shorter, so what’s big on me is huge on—OOF!” Fuji fell back as she was jabbed by Zantetsuken’s handle, and rubbed her left side while sitting back down in her spot.

“Don’t get in someone’s personal bubble without their consent,” Odori reminded her, her eyebrow twitching. “Don’t make me explain it to you again! I don’t have puppets to help with visuals this time!”

“My apartment’s close to here… We can stay there for the time being.” Toshiro announced this after he had finished his pizza, and the rest of the group nodded, most of them climbing into Ryo’s car while Yukiko rode on the back of the scooter with Toshiro, and he was the one to navigate them through the traffic in the theater district, leading them to his apartment complex on 6th Avenue, about ten minutes away from the pizza parlor.

“Um… Where’s your bedroom?” was the first thing Heiji asked when they walked in. There was no wall that divided the living room and dining room that they entered from the bedroom on the left hand side.

“You’re lookin’ at it. And I’m sorry in advance, but you gotta walk through the closet to get to the bathroom. Ally, double sorry, but it’s a galley kitchen.”

“I can make do,” Ally answered, tossing down his backpack on the ground near the front door and stretching. The ride had been short, but eventful.

“The best 4k a month can get you,” Toshiro chuckled to himself, and Yukiko nearly choked on the unlit cigarette she was dangling in her mouth.

“T-That’s how much it costs you here?! Why not just go live in New Jersey?!”

“Well, Julie liked it here, and I have the bird coop set up outside on my balcony…. I can’t really bring myself to sell it,” he replied with a shrug. “Plus when Fuji comes through I can probably afford this place for the rest of my life, especially since I probably spent most of my twenties knockin’ years off of it.”

Odori had been the most silent in the group. She had busied herself looking at the rows and rows of photographs on the walls. It included some ones of her and Heiji when they were younger, as well as their parents. But there was also the pink-haired woman that she’d never met. Some photos were of them at performances, while others at the beach, or in a park. There was one she couldn’t help but take off the wall to get a better look at. They were standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom, and she seemed to have taken the photo with a cell phone. Both of their hair was soaking wet, and the sink in front of them a shade of bright pink from where they had both been dying their hair.

“Yeah, we’re probably the reason for all of the plumbing problems here,” Toshiro laughed as he looked down at the picture in Odori’s hand. “She would have had a field day with you… Probably would have wanted you to dye your hair weird, and taken the whole day to do it.”

“She looks lovely.”

“Yeah, she was Dori… Sorry I never let you meet her.”

“You won’t do that with future lovers, will you? Keep them away?”

“Dori, I honestly don’t think there will be any,” he replied, hanging the photo back on the wall. “A-Also don’t say “lovers” again, okay? It’s weird coming from you.”

“Understood. I’ll refrain in the future.”

“Heh… Hey, um, where’s the can at in his place?” Yukiko asked, having placed her cigarette in her jacket pocket a while ago.

“Back through the closet, Yuki.”

Yukiko nodded and headed through the rows of clothes, noting the women’s clothing still on the left hand side of it.

She looked down and noticed pink staining in the sink when she went to go rinse her face off.

 

Twelve Years Ago

“You want me to what?” Yukiko returned with a chuckle.

“Be my best man—My parents aren’t gonna be there, and face it, you’re the one who taught me how to tie a tie…” Toshiro noted the crinkled gray suit his friend wore, and she pulled her cigarette out of her mouth and tossed it. A group of pigeons flocked to it before being disappointed that it was not a scrap of food.

“Why? They against it?”

“I… Kinda didn’t tell them…”

“W-What?!” Yukiko bolted up from her seat and stared at Toshiro, her hands shoved deep in her pockets. “You didn’t TELL them?!”

“Hey, so why are you wearing suits now, anyway?”

“Because miniskirts make me self-conscious. What are you thinking?!”

“That I love her, Yuki. And that Dad would freaking flip.”

“Well, yeah. She was what, a teenager when you met her? That’d be like me marrying Heiji!”

“Hey… You’re seeing someone now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but we’re not getting married—And I never babysat him!”

“She didn’t babysit me! I’m on the one who asked her out… If you don’t want to, that’s fine.”

“No, no, I’ll do it… Just think about it though, okay? This is heavy, and you’re young. We’re both really young.”

“Thank you!” He stood, now towering over her since last they met, and embraced her. She could feel her shoulders fall, and after a moment of letting him do this, returned the hug in the park.

 

“I need to talk to you. Alone.” Toshiro heard Yukiko behind him as he washed the dishes in his kitchen, and put the last pot in the dish drain before shutting the dishwasher next to him and drying off his hands.

“Little hard to do that, Yuki… I practically have people sleeping in the closet.”

“Maybe we could go for a walk then? Down to Bryant Park and back.”

“Yeah, I gotta get my walking in after that plane ride, anyhow,” he shrugged and tossed the dish towel on the counter before coming upon the large group in the living room and bedroom. Blankets and pillows had been spread out, as had sleeping bags, and it looked more like a slumber party than a group of plotting thieves.

“I wanna go get cigarettes,” Yukiko explained to them, and this was greeted with a wave from Fuji. What had started as plotting out their scheme on a Monopoly board had somehow turned into an actual game of Monopoly along the way.

“That’s gonna end in a brawl,” Toshiro chuckled. “And you really should quit that… You made your dad quit smoking, and your mom had ca—”

“We ain’t here to bring up my mom,” she snapped quickly, and Toshiro conceded to this, remaining quiet on their trip down the elevator and out the doors.

“What is this about, anyway?” The outside was sweltering, made humid by a late-evening rainfall. Toshiro unzipped the front of his hooded sweater before eventually just slinging it over his arm, while Yukiko did not seem bothered by the heat, keeping her wrinkled suit just as it was.

“You. And your place.”

“Look, I know it’s expensive, but—”

“It’s a shrine.”

“….Well, yeah. I have a little one set up, but—”

“No. The whole place. I don’t think it’s what she would have wanted for you.”

“What, you know something I don’t? You two talked?”

“No. But that closet… And all the photos… You even seen anyone since then?”

“I don’t want to,” he admitted. “I don’t see how that’s hurting anyone or anything.”

“So you’re just gonna keep it up like that?”

“If I want to. I don’t see what your concern is about it.”

“I’m just worried… As your friend, I’m worried. You have a tendency to latch onto something and… Listen, it’s stupid. I know. But I just think—”

“Thanks for sharing your opinion, but I’m doing okay.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?” He stopped short of a crosswalk as they prepped to pass another block, and Yukiko glared at him from underneath her white fedora.

“I said it was bullshit,” she repeated. “You’re clearly not doing okay.”

“You think it’s bullshit. You think it’s bullshit I haven’t let anyone close to me. We’re not even gonna start about you?”

“This ain’t about me.”

“You had one serious relationship that didn’t work out for you and that’s it, you’re done.”

“You have one and you’re done!” she snapped in return. “You’re so stubborn…”

“Listen, what I do is my business. If it hurts me that’s my problem.”

“Well it’s sorta my problem, too. That’s how friendship works, jackass!”

Toshiro was about to shout back at her, having gone nearly “full New Yorker” on her, but both only leaned back and out of the way as something metallic went sailing past them both. Yukiko looked at the throwing star stuck into the concrete in amazement, while Toshiro already had reached into his back pocket and pulled out a butterfly knife.

“They freakin’ found us, Yuki!” he called out.

Yukiko gasped as she spotted a blinking red dot on the throwing star, but before she could give warning, it exploded, leveling the piece of sidewalk and sending them both flying back. Yukiko rolled and took cover behind a parked car at meter, and fired a few shots towards what she determined was the source of the throw. The few people that had remained there, stunned silent, went scrambling at the noise from the magnum, while Toshiro ran through the crowd and started to scale up the fire escape to the top of the roof.  
All he found there when he reached the top was a letter held in place on the floor of the roof by a knife.


	7. There's a House in Harlem for Sale

“Jet lag’s going to be the death of me!” Max yawned and stretched as he followed Leo into the hotel room and sat down on the squeaking mattress of the cheap bed. “You gotta hand it to Lupin, she sure is making a name for herself…”

Leo had no sooner turned on the old, box-style TV then they both saw it—A playback from a morning show, and Fuji standing out in the middle of the audience in Rockefeller Center, holding up details of her next heist on a bright green sign written on with glitter pen, all the while cheering as the weatherman reported on the possibility of rain.

“We could hide her body and they’d never know… No. She wouldn’t float in the bottom of the Hudson. Her boobs are probably too buoyant.”

“Do we really have to go on about her chest, Zenigata?” Leo asked with a light chuckle to hide the fact he slowly felt himself dying on the inside every time Max did it.

“Eh, yeah… I get it if you’re shy… Sorry, I’ll try to keep that in check, LeBlanc.”

“Well, it’s not that, it’s just… She’s… A criminal, you know? It just… Doesn’t feel professional.”

“Yeah… Sorry LeBlanc, didn’t know you felt that way about it… I guess stuff just worked different at my old department.”

“Thanks for understanding, Zenigata.” Leo’s shoulders fell with relief, and he set to unpacking his suitcase. His rare moment of peace was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone, and he looked down at it with a shudder. The number was restricted, but he knew exactly who it was.

He took the phone call out in the hallway of the hotel, and he was less than pleased by the cheerful giggle on the other end.

“So I see Fuji’s been busy!”

“Dad, I… This is a really, really bad time to call me. Also how are you even making this call? I don’t have long distance on my personal phone!”

“What, is it the reason your mother and I can’t come over?”

“No! Yes… Kind of… Listen, I’m on assignment in New York, we’ll talk as soon as I get back, I promise!”

“We could do that… Or we could get together for lunch! I can swing by--It'll take a few hours but, hey, I'm retired, I have time to kill.”

“You… You know that I can’t do that. I have a job now, and if anybody knew—”

“Ari, when are you going to come around? It’s been almost a year and—”

“Let me do this!” Leo snapped. There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Leo rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses.

“…If that’s what you want, Ari.”

“Dad? Dad, wait!” Leo glared at the screen that showed the dropped call and turned to head back into the hotel room, but found the door already open.

“Sorry, I heard shouting and at a place like this it could’ve been a murder out here for all I know…” Max replied, taking a step aside to allow Leo back in the room. “Everything, um… Okay?”

“Fine… Yeah, it’s fine… Sorry, Zenigata… So it’s a book of prints she’s after this time, right?”

“Right. The Museum of Modern Art.”

“She really isn’t aiming for small,” Leo huffed and tossed aside his phone on the bed. “Hopefully we’ll get taken a little more seriously this time.”

“Hey, we’re heroes in Dubai at least.”

 

“You’ve been looking at that for an hour at least,” Odori opted for a couch, for once, as she took a seat beside Toshiro. Ally was arguing with Heiji over whether the dining room table would be better served for hosting an array of computers or, well, dining, while Ryo tended to a scrape Yukiko had received from the attack the night before. Fuji was busying herself with an Etch-a-Sketch at the same dining room table where Ally and Heiji argued.

“I… I’m trying to remember what the words mean…”

“Hrm?” 

“I don’t really… Read Japanese anymore…”

“You would like me to, then?”

“If you don’t mind…”

Odori skimmed over it before handing it back to Toshiro, “It’s inconsequential to the task at hand.”

“…It’s about Julie, isn’t it?”

“…Yes.”

“....Yuki chewed me out for keeping this place a “shrine” last night. Before the attack.”

“So you were nearly killed by Rat Clan members… And your main concern is that you got shouted at.”

“It’s not that… I mean… Do you think…?”

“I’ve never lost anyone like you have… But at the same time, I think if you are questioning it this much that you may already have your answer. I need to go practice. May I move your bed out of the way?”

“What? O-Oh, yeah…”

Odori gave a dutiful nod, and Toshiro was left to look at the note and wonder exactly what it was written on it.

 

“Finally! This is what I’m TALKING about!” The only time Max’s grin had been wider was when he had gotten the latest Xbox on the last night of Hanukah, after enduring the obligatory seventh night of receiving socks and new school clothes. He was practically giggling at the guards lined up in front of him, while Leo chose to shirk back, doing his best to remain behind Max. “This is the amount of manpower we need for her!”

“Just two weeks ago you thought she was a joke,” Leo reminded him, and Max cringed and cleared his throat.

“I reserve the right to adjust my opinion at the situation changes… How what are you thinking, like twenty in the front? Maybe around the around the air vents?”

“Fuji doesn’t do air vents,” Leo replied offhandedly, and just as quickly mentally kicked himself.

“What, how did you…? Right! Boobs are too big! LeBlanc, you’re a genius!”

“I-I thought we agreed to stop talking about those!”

“Right, so we’ll just focus on the entrances!” Max paced around the large room in front of them, stopping in front of a Pollock painting, and Leo walked over to him with a brochure from the museum, nudged him, and pointed out the floorplan.

“S-Six stories and a theater?!” Max yelped, his voice cracking. Just as it had when he had gotten the Xbox.

 

The tiny performance artist, dressed in all white and hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses and a large, floppy white hat looked unamused at the tour guide. Her entourage, also dressed in flowing white outfits, was greeted with a warm welcome by the curator.

“Who’s Yoko Ono over there?” Max whispered as he nodded to the tiny woman, who was now getting flanked by photographers walking backwards, forwards, and any way they could to get a shot of her as she strolled through the exhibits. The two officers had spent the afternoon revising Max's plans for security, and their plotting had been interrupted by the commotion of the newest visitor.

Leo flipped to another page of the brochure and held it closer so he could read it better, “Huh! Looks like Maki Nakamura… A “scream artist”.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s all basically just recordings of her screaming at different national landmarks…”

“…You ever just get angry that you went to school for years for a decent job, LeBlanc?”

“All the time.” Leo folded the brochure and shoved it in his pocket. “Apparently she’s a recluse.”

“So… She’s a Japanese artist who’s rarely seen and she’s here the same time Lupin wants to steal something…”

“And she’s short with long hair… Just like Ishikawa.”

Max looked to Leo, Leo looked to Max. Max reached for his handcuffs while Leo pulled out his badge.

 

“Ohhh… That’s rough…” Fuji winced as she watched the footage on her cell phone. It was nighttime in the city, but it was still well illuminated enough to make it look like they were still in the daytime. She couldn’t help but giggle as she watched Maki smacking both Leo and Max with her white sun hat.

“They get arrested?” Ally asked, leaning over to take a look at the video footage from earlier in the morning himself.

“No. Nakamura ended up loving the audio playback so much that she offered to not press charges as long as she got to keep the security tape.” Fuji shut her cell phone and smile.   
“I like that Ari’s new job seems to be working out for him!”

“I can’t believe they thought that was me,” Odori huffed.

“I know! Her scream is TOTALLY different, Dori-chan!” Fuji giggled.

“Hey, we’re here—Where do I let you out at?” asked Ryo from her spot behind the wheel.

Fuji held up a lone index finger and extended her lower lip, “The salon… I broke a nail…”

“Fuji! Focus!”

“So mean, Ryo-san…” Fuji adjusted the glasses on her face and adjusted the side view mirror of the car. “Do you think I could pass as an insurance agent?”

“You look to me like you could suck the life out of something,” Yukiko said plainly from her spot on Toshiro’s scooter. Toshiro climbed off of it, adjusted his suit, and nodded his thanks as Yukiko handed him a briefcase.

“Toshiro,” Odori called out to him. “…Be careful in there.”

“I will, Dori. Don’t worry.” Toshiro handed Fuji a matching briefcase and the two headed into the large museum.

“So what food’s the best here?”

“Eh? I thought you were a dieting freak, Fuji?”

“Are you kidding? I eat like a pig. I just run all the time to keep this figure up!”

“Chinese.”

“Really! This coming from a guy who actually visited China, too…”

“Where’s this book at?”

“Second floor. It’s almost closing time in, but we’re going to be in assessing its value.”

“How’d you convince them?”

“Well, oddly one of the higher-ups thought it would be a good idea after the scare yesterday.”

“Really…? So random phone call?”

“I love that so many of you can sound American!” she giggled and stopped in front of a large glass case in the center of a large, otherwise sparse room, and her grin grew. “This is it! Beautiful, huh?”

Toshiro glanced at the open page in the case and tilted his head, “Eh? Oh, yeah… They’re all kinda demented looking though, don’t you think?”

“Oh don’t be like that, Toshiro-chan! This is your culture!”

“These things used to give my nightmares, Fuji! My dad was banned from bedtime story duty for a reason! Now what?”

“Well, since Ms. Nakamura took all of the security cameras, and I know for a fact they haven’t been replaced yet, I say you let me work while you keep the curator busy. Turn on the charm!”

“W-What?”

“Mr. Inoue?”

“T-That’s me!” Toshiro snapped his head to find the curator in question there. She was also a Japanese woman, dressed in a business suit and holding a clipboard in hand. Toshiro was relieved to see that she was older--perhaps twenty years or so—So the need for “charm” was probably unnecessary.

“Erica Sorayama,” she extended his hand to shake it and grinned. “I was hoping we could discuss the matter of taking up some additional insurance on the book Ms. Yamada is looking at so intently.”

“…Yeah…” Toshiro noticed she wasn’t wearing heels, as he thought she was. In fact… They didn’t look like dress shoes at all. He felt for the knife in his trouser pocket as he followed the tall woman through the exhibits of the museum, leaving behind Fuji to grab the book in the meantime.

“So I heard a rumor… There’s another group after this book… The Rat Clan?” asked Toshiro with a clearing of the throat.

She stopped in the middle of the emptying exhibit, and turned around to face him. “That was just a rumor. Where did you hear that?”

“Word gets around this day and age. What the hell would they want with a single page in a book?”

“The person featured on it was their leader at the time. Well… An artistic representation…”

“I’d hope they wouldn’t actually look like that…” Toshiro muttered, glad he’d inherited his father’s features, even if they were hidden by a mask and wig at the moment.

She gave a chuckle as she opened the door to her office, “Not at all! It was a bit of a liberty he took.”

“…This is your office?”

“Why yes.” Erica took a seat at the desk and smiled. “You seem surprised.”

“Well, it’s just… There’s a suit jacket and tie on the coat rack back there… And the jacket looks a little short for you.”

“You’re very perceptive, Mr. Inoue.” She reached up from where her hand had been hidden by the desk, and pulled up a long blade. “It’s a shame it’s come to this.”

 

Fuji was humming to herself as she finished lifting the glass off of the case, quietly thanking Heiji for deactivating the alarm system remotely. Part of her wished for that same alarm system as she felt the tip of a knife jab her in the back warningly.

“My. I’ve heard about being excited by the arts, but this is just ridiculous!” she giggled as she raised both of her hands above her head. She felt the book ripped out of her left hand before the blade was raised over her head, and a few of the hairs on the top were sliced through before a shot rang out and the ninja fell to the floor, instantly dead from his wounds.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier!?” Fuji yelped, slamming her black high heel with its red back on the floor.

“I like being dramatic,” Yukiko answered, and fired another round of shots as more ninjas jumped out from behind a sculpture of a Roman centurian.

The ones that came in through the left side hallway were greeted by Ally with his fists, and the ones on the right were treated to a taste of Zantetsuken, wielded by Odori.

“I visited the scream art exhibit and am even more offended that they thought it could be me!” Odori announced in-between slices.

“Fuji! Where’s Toshiro!?” called out Ally.

Fuji yelped and ducked a kick from one of the ninjas, all the while she continued to cut out a hole in the glass case large enough to slide the book through, “Distracting the curator! A Sorayama lady!”

“Fuji, there’s no one on the payroll with that name,” she heard Heiji say through her earpiece.

“…I think someone may need to go help!” Fuji added, high-kicking a ninja that rushed up to her with a sword with her red-backed high heel.

Toshiro, meanwhile, was still fighting in the small office now strewn in destroyed books and paperwork. He ducked under the desk as Erica stuck out her blade, and just as quickly rose and kicked back the desk, pinning her against one of the walls temporarily. She snarled and pushed the desk away from herself, then hopped on it and lunged for him. Toshiro grabbed a nearby marble bookend in the shape of an angel, and used this to block her blade before striking her across the face with it. 

She yowled out in pain, but looked up at him, seething, through the blood that dripped down from her forehead. She ran at him, but not with her blade drawn. Instead she pushed into him, and sent them both sailing through the splintered door of the office, sliding across the floor of the hallway with him.

It was at this same time Leo and Max ran up to the museum, having just finished meeting the police to make sure that there would, indeed, be sufficient security for the book.

Even from the windows, both could see shadows of people inside the supposedly closed building. They nodded to one another and rushed in, guns drawn, running up the stairs and passing a pair of fainted and tied-up guards in the process.

“This is kind of fun!” Fuji exclaimed as she kicked away another ninja while sitting perched on the arm of a large statue of a Greek god, the book now securely in her arms.

“Do you think you could at least TRY to escape!?” Ally growled, breaking out of a headlock he’d been placed in and punching one of the Rat Clan members in the gut.

“OH! I nearly forgot!” she giggled, hopped off the statue, and bounded her way towards the exit, humming to herself and skipping over the fallen along the way.

She was stopped in the gallery by Erica, who had appeared to have lost Toshiro long enough to track down Fuji.

“That book… Give it to me…”

“…That blood does not match that necklace. And ballet flats with a pantsuit. Ouch. The blood’s the least of your worries there.”

“No games, bitch!”

“Don’t call her that!” Toshiro growled as he jumped behind Erica, his blade drawn. She knocked him down on the ground with a turn, and Toshiro rolled down on the floor.

“Here!” He heard, and Odori stopped her fighting long enough to toss him the pair of swords she’d carried on her back.

“Dori, I love you right now,” he said to himself as he ripped off his mask and wig and unsheathed the pair of swords.

Erica stopped her attack on Fuji, which had largely been unsuccessful due to Fuji’s erratic jumping and dancing about. The willingness to look like a fool and ability to move gracefully in heels was proving to be Fuji’s advantage.

Erica stopped doing much of anything as she looked at Toshiro. Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.

“You hurt my wife. You won’t hurt my friends,” he snapped, a sword in either of his hands as he glared down at her. He threw the disguise down on the floor, and with a glare stalked towards her slowly.

“I… You… You’re…” she started to sputter, but with a shake of the head quickly regained herself. Toshiro yelled and ran for her, but with a puff of smoke she vanished.

It fell silent in the gallery. As the smoke cleared, the Lupin gang found all of the Rat Clan members gone. Even the ones that had been injured.

“Out of here quicker than Dad whenever Mom cooked dinner…” Ally muttered, rubbing his aching fists.

“LUPIN!” Fuji jumped at the sound of Max’s familiar growl, and she looked to her left and right.

“S-She couldn’t have chosen a smoke bomb that lasted a little longer?!” Fuji yelped, running away from the duo and down the hall of the museum, tossing the book of prints to Toshiro along the way.

Fuji finally lost the inspectors in the theater, and Ryo was there to pick her up. The rest of the gang had gathered, and Fuji immediately slumped down in her seat when she finally hopped into the passenger side of the car. Ally had been expecting Ryo’s shoes to come flying back at him, but was unprepared when Fuji’s high heels did the same. While he had only minimal injuries from the Rat Clan fight, he took one of these straight to the face, and clutched his aching nose.

“New rule! Shoes stay up front!” Ally snapped, lifting up the offending high heel.

Yukiko couldn’t help but notice how quiet Toshiro was the entire ride back to his apartment.

 

“You have anything on her, Heiji?” Toshiro looked over his brother’s shoulder at the three laptop screens in front of him, and Heiji shook his head.

“Just that she’s a known member of the Rat Clan. No name, though. Why? You don’t think…?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Toshiro admitted, placing his hands behind his head and giving a deep exhale. He noticed Heiji was no longer focused on the computers; instead, he was looking past these to Fuji and Ryo, who were playing a card game with one another.

“Ya know… You should talk to her.”

“E-Eh? What?” Heiji snapped back to attention and blinked.

“Fuji.”

“What about her?”

“You liked her back when we worked with Ari. Your excuse then was that Ari was our boss and it woulda been weird.”

“Well, now Fuji’s my boss, so it’d be even weirder.”

“Hey, it’s your business. Just don’t wait on that shit, man.”

“Noted… I’m gonna look in another database in the meantime.” Heiji waved Toshiro off, and waited until he was certain he was alone to pull up another page, one he had kept minimized. One with Erica's real name. One that told him everything he needed to know that Toshiro had been wondering about.

 

Toshiro found Yukiko walking around the apartment while brushing her teeth, and gave a roll of the eyes.

“That’s gross. That’s so gross that you do that. And what the hell if you trip, Yuki?” he asked as he sat down on his bed. "Plus we have an ancient book here that we're supposed to give back to the museum tomorrow. You really wanna get toothpaste all over it?"

Yukiko returned to the sink and spit out the toothpaste before answering him. “Then I die and make a lot of people with gunshot wounds very happy that I went out that way. So what’s with the boxes?” She pointed her toothbrush around to the stack of cardboard boxes against one of the bedroom walls, and Toshiro shrugged.

“Eh? Got them from the liquor store this morning.”

“You, uh, aren’t taking up a new hobby, are you?”

“What? Hell no. I just figured it… Might be nice to have a change of scenery. And with what Fuji’s gonna pay us I’ll be able to afford an actual bedroom. Hell, I can have a guest room.”

“You mean for once I won’t get your couch? Aw, but that’s tradition! Just like you scaring the hell outta my dad in the middle of the night when you visit.”

“Yeah I’m movin’, now let’s talk about how you live at your parents’ place still.”

“OH! Lightbulb! You two should be roommates!” Fuji exclaimed, climbing over Ryo on the couch before being pushed back into her place.

“Move from Chicago? Nah, you’re cracked.... Then again I am one of the few people who can stand you. And you’ll never have to deal with your step-mom’s cooking ever again.”

“No, I’ll have you and show tunes every morning, just like when we were kids!”

“Hey, you’ll be getting up at a decent hour!... In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind it, Yuki. You’re one of the few people I trust.”

“I’ll think about it, all right?” she answered. “At least let me get my tie on before you go asking me about big things like that.”

“Oh, I ironed it for you!” Fuji called out, and Yukiko just as quickly made a strangling motion at Fuji.

“Y-You WHAT?! That’s dry clean!”

“See! If you lived with Toshiro-chan he would know that and would have been able to stop me! I do owe you a new tie… Maybe we can update your whole wardrobe! A cute little cocktail dress or something!”

“Do I look like the cocktail dress sort?!”

It would certainly be louder again with a roommate, Toshiro thought to himself.

That didn't sound like that awful an idea, come to think of it.


	8. Dafydd y Garreg Wen

“I wonder what the alphabet ever did to Wales to deserve to be treated like that.” Max asked as he looked at the directions on his cell phone and turned the phone to the side, along with his head.

“That is a very loaded question that we could spend all day talking about, Zenigata,” Leo replied. “Now which way am I going?”

“Turn right on… Oh holy hell, what the…? Corgi Town Gary Terry….”

Leo raised an and looked down at the map for himself, “Coryton Gyratory.”

“Showoff… What is this place we’re going to, anyway?”

“Castle Coch—Built by Ifor Bach. Ivor the Short. I think you can appreciate a name like that, Zenigata!”

“I will fight you, LeBlanc.”

“Anyway, Ifor was famous for kidnapping the Earl of Gloucester. Scaled a wall all by himself to do it. He held the Earl and his family captive until a ransom was paid. Supposedly that ransom is still hidden somewhere in the castle, and Fuji’s got her eye on finding it and stealing it.”

“…It looks like a Dracula lives there…” Zenigata admitted when they had finally pulled up to it, and Leo stepped out of the small red Skoda and looked out on the relatively small castle with the towers sticking up in the early morning mist.

“It’s not the scariest one I’ve been to… There was this one off the coast of Naples… Talk about spooky…” Leo murmured as he entered with Max and a tour guide and looked at the tall walls of the keep and gatehouse on either side of them.

“I thought Britain was supposed to be cooler,” Max muttered as he loosened his tie.

“It’s mid-July. If you wanted cooler we should have hoped Fuji went to South Africa,” Leo chuckled. “Wow, this place is gorgeous…”

“And slightly better insulation than your place…”

“You know you can always complain to the landlord.”

“I don’t know French, LeBlanc.”

“Well looks like we’ll be staying on good terms then!” Leo was almost too chipper about this, and Max shot him a dull glare.

“I’m going to need food after this. I hope you plan on feeding me.”

“Do I look like your mom?”

“No. You aren’t glaring at me or are in a pair of yoga pants you wear to teach krav maga. But I cook for us at home, so….”

“Okay now you’re sounding like a girlfriend.”

“You’d be so lucky, LeBlanc. Come on, we’ll finish our spooky castle tour later. I need food.”

 

“…If he points out one more spot where they spot an episode of “Doctor Who,” I’m going to shoot Heiji at point blank range. I just want everyone to be clear on that,” Yukiko announced, her teeth grit and a cigarette jutting out of her mouth.

Heiji, at that exact moment, stopped in front of the Wales Millennium Centre, a large building with a stone wall built above the doors, and lettering half in Welsh, half in English. “And this is where they shot scenes from—”

Yukiko growled, and started to stomp towards Heiji, but was quickly pulled back by both Ally and Ryo by her arms.

“I’m glad you’re making the most out of this trip, Heiji-chan,” Fuji said with her best enthusiasm, not looking up from her book all the while. “And good news for everyone else, I rented out an inn for us to stay at this time! The whole place, just to us! Fun, right?! And it’s supposedly haunted!”

“What? Oh hell no… I’m not getting mixed up in that…” Yukiko stopped her walk and tossed her cigarette on the pavement, crunching it underneath her black and white saddle shoe.

“You’re not afraid of a little ghost or something, are you Yuki-chan?”

“I don’t mess with that stuff, Fuji….”

“Yuki’s always been bad with that stuff,” Toshiro laughed. “She used to stay up all night until sunrise if I put on a movie about ghosts or something like that.”

“Says the guy who freaked out the first time he heard the noise a flush toilet made,” Yukiko snorted.

“Now, now kids… Let’s get along with one another, neh?” Fuji took a flyer she’d picked up from a shop worker outside a while back, folded it, and started to fan herself with it. 

“What’s that you’ve been reading, Fuji? Usually it has to have some sort of picture in it for you to be that interested,” Ryo giggled, noting the old, tattered book underneath one of Fuji’s arms.

“One of Grandpa Lupin’s old journals. I’ve been going over them while figuring out this whole “being Lupin business”. This part is all about one of his old partners His apartment shouldn’t be much further, actually… Wait! Flat! That’s right! They call them flats here!”

“Who?” Ally asked, being the brave one to question Fuji this time. 

“The guy who’s going to help us with our next little project! One of the greatest thieves this country’s ever known, and apparently one of Grandpa’s favorite old drinking buddies! He even stole a knighthood! I don’t know how you do that, but I want to be a dame before I leave this country,” she chirped in reply, kicking her heels and giggling. “OH! We should stop by London while we’re here! Ride in a London taxi, like Cinderella Boy!”

“What is she even talking about?” Ally sighed.

“I think it’s a Fuji nerd thing,” Ryo answered with her best guess.

“Here we go~!” Fuji exclaimed coming upon the tall white apartment building not a few blocks away from the Millennium Centre. She twirled around before pressing her freshly manicured nail against the buzzer and waiting for the speaker. The voice came in slurred and fuzzy, but Fuji somehow made it out enough to ask if they were all right to come up. Another slurred response, and the rest of the gang took it as permission to enter as Fuji waved them along.

“And I didn’t freak out… I was caught off guard…” Toshiro made sure to say to Yukiko as they followed the rest of the group up. There were no elevators, only flight after flight of stairs.

“Starting to really regret these,” Fuji admitted halfway through, noting her pinching toes in her high heels. She continued onward, occasionally flinching, and a collective sigh of relief was given as she finally reached the floor with the flat she seemed intent on.

Fuji adjusted her wrinkled jacket, her red skirt, and her short hair, and then reached out to knock. Her fist only hit air as the door was suddenly pulled open and a single, tired blue eye looked out at her.

“Sir Llewelyn!” she squealed.

The door slammed shut. Fuji looked to her left and right and shot a nervous smile.

“He might have thought we were with UKIP?” she suggested, leaning forward and knocking forward once more.

“What do you want?!” came the bark from the other side.

“You… Did some business a while back… With my grandfather? Lupin the Second?”

The door opened once more, and a chain separated the haggard-looking old man from the young woman on the other side.

“Have you come to return the money that rat bastard drank away on me?”

“Not exactly?”

When he went to close the door this time, he found it impossible as Odori jammed her sheathed Zantetsuken in the opening and looked up at him with an expression that dared him to nudge it.

“…Tidy…” he muttered to himself. “All right. Come in. But touch nothing.”

Fuji went to hug Odori and the samurai instinctively swerved out of the way to prevent this, and Fuji settled on patting her atop her head.

“Good Dori-chan. Smart and pretty Dori-chan.”

Daffyd Llewelyn’s apartment was small but lined up and down with old newspaper articles in all sorts of languages. Yukiko took a tour of these while Daffyd poured tea for Fuji in his living room, which was decorated in dusty furniture and mounds of newspapers all about.

“So his replacement’s his daughter. Heh. What happened to the boy?” asked Llewelyn.

Ryo shuffled in her spot next to the plastic-wrapped couch, and Fuji’s polite grin twitched.

“Lifestyle change.”

“So who’s in charge now? The tall one, the fat one, the Beatle, or the one in the suit who smells like an ashtray?”

“Relax. You’re not THAT fat,” Heiji reassured Toshiro from his place on the equally uncomfortable couch on the other side of Ryo and Fuji.

Fuji cleared her throat and raised one hand, “Um… It’s… Me actually, Sir Llewelyn?”

Daffyd had a laugh at this. He had a very good laugh at this. And it trailed as the confusion failed to waver from Fuji’s face. “Oh Christ. You’re serious! The woman’s your leader?”

“Why wouldn’t she b—Ohhhhh my God…” Ryo leaned forward and rubbed her temples. “Fuji. I need to talk to you in the kitchen.”

“Me. A leader,” Yukiko snorted and she removed her hat and fanned herself with it. “No central air is real hell…”

Daffyd furrowed his brow and tilted his head, “You’re a woman, too? Good God…”

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Ryo did her best breathing exercises, the same ones she always did when prepping to work with Fuji. The same ones that kept her anxiety in check.

“Your idea of a good idea was to have us work with an old-school sexist dinosaur. Am I wrong with anything there?”

“Well, except the part where I thought it was a good idea. I thought it was a great idea!”

“Odori and Yukiko will kill him, Fuji. More than a little bit! I can handle it, parts of the academic world are filled with asses like this. Them… They’re a different story.”

“So he was part of that older generation. It’s only, Ryo-san! He’s going to lead us directly to what we need?”

“A weight to tie around his neck and a river to throw him in?”

“No! A dragon’s egg.”

Ryo was agape, “…I’m going to throw you in right after I throw him!”

“Not a literal one! Do I look like I’m vying for an iron throne? I’m all gold and silver, baby! Remember the whole bit about Ifor’s castle, and the ransom?”

“You were talking fast, so vaguely. I only caught half of it.”

“It was all melted down into a single, large egg called the Dragon’s Egg. It’s huge, made out of gold and silver, lined in jewels, and is exactly what I need to bring together the throw rug in my living room!”

“One, you still live with your parents most of the time. Two, you’re insane.”

“Sir Llewelyn knows that castle inside and out! He and Grandpa Lupin used to spend entire weekends searching for the Dragon’s Egg.”

“Entire. Weekends. Meaning they never found it.”

“But now there’s more of us! Plus, Grandpa Lupin wasn’t really good at doing things sober, ehehehe….”

“If you keep up like this Fuji, I don’t think you’re going to get a whole year out of half of the people out there.”

“Do you trust me, Ryo-san?”

“…I do. Don’t make me lose that trust, Fuji.”

 

“You know, this actually isn’t bad for being served in a place with more dartboards than people in it,” Max admitted as he took another bite of the chicken and mushroom pie. It was a dark and quiet pub he and Leo had stopped in for the evening, sparsely populated by people who were getting off of work and looking to unwind.

Leo sat opposite Max at the booth, casually nibbling at his sandwich while looking at the three books spread out in front of him.

“....Or I could just talk to the wall…”

“Eh? O-Oh, sorry, Zenigata. Just catching up on my Welsh.”

“She might be able to help you,” Max nodded back over to the bar area, and Leo’s eyes traveled over to it, falling on the young redheaded woman smiling back at him. Leo’s shoulders flinched, and he immediately returned to his books. “Not your type?”

“It’s not that….”

“Ah, I get it. It’s been a while. It’s been a little while since I’ve had a girlfriend too. I can go talk to her if you want.”

“I just… I’m not interested in that right now, Zenigata. Thanks but no thanks.”

“…Bad breakup?”

“Aren’t you usually the one saying I’m talking too much?”

“Which makes this even weirder, LeBlanc.”

“I just don’t do well around women anymore.” Leo shut all three of his books, stacked them up in a corner of the table, and made the rest of his sandwich his main focus. “I freeze up talking to most of them who aren’t my mom or sister.”

“Sister? You have a sister?”

Leo cursed inwardly and shut his eyes, “Yeah… A mom, dad, sister, and a lot of half-siblings who didn’t live with us but would show up on occasion.”

“I can’t imagine you having that loud a house… I always pictured you living in some quiet little high-class chateau somewhere with tutors and maybe playing polo.”

Leo stopped eating his sandwich so that he wouldn’t choke on it. All of these things, as a matter of fact, had been true growing up. Maybe there was something to Zenigata being as good a detective as his father.

“A spoiled rich kid, huh? Well I imagine you being a little bit of a scrapper, Zenigata.”

“Well, my dad and I were famous for when we duked out it in front of our house when I was a teenager.”

“The hell did you do?”

“Eh, doesn’t even matter now.”

“Who won?”

“My mom,” Max snorted a laugh, and Leo cracked a smile. This just as soon faded as the redheaded woman rose from the bar and wandered over to him. Max caught this, and without a word reached out and put one of his hands atop Leo’s, making Leo give a quick, wide-eyed stare over to him. The redheaded woman’s eyebrows shot up, and she just as quickly turned, tossed her money on the bar, and headed out of the pub.

“Figured that was a quick way for you to avoid talking to her,” Max replied as he released Leo’s hand.

“Um… Thanks, Zenigata,” Leo replied in a muttered, noticing that he had ducked both of his hands under the table as he said this to Max. He cleared his throat and reached for one of his books and Max, with a shrug, headed off to go play darts with the few other men in the pub.

 

Daffyd stared at the group before he gave a shake of the head and a laugh, “And I thought the third one was a spectacle. This takes it to a whole new level. What exactly do you do in those high heels, anyhow? You don’t expect me to believe you run in them.” 

“I don’t even scuff them,” Fuji replied, leaning back on the couch and ignoring the very uncool sound of the plastic rustling underneath her.

“Ridiculous… I met plenty of your kind in my time, young girl.”

“Hey. Buddy. She’s a woman,” Yukiko spoke up from her spot standing behind the couch.

“That’s right. That’s a bit of a big deal now. All right, Miss Lupin… I’m humour you and join you. But you’re following my lead, do you understand?”

Fuji’s grin grew from between her red-painted lips, “All right, Sir Llewelyn. You’ll lead. We’ll follow.”

Ryo leaned forward and gave a squeeze on Fuji’s shoulder that could only mean that they would have another talk later.

The talk was delayed by Daffyd laying out an old faded map of the castle on his dining room table after clearing it off, and Fuji hummed to herself and rocked back and forth in her high heels as she watched him go to work.

“All right… Now which one of you lads is the gunman?” Daffyd looked about the group, and Yukiko reached from behind her back and pulled out her magnum and laid it out on the table, over the map. “…You?”

“What? Afraid it’s bigger than yours?” Yukiko smirked, holding up her hands above her head and stretching them.

“And the getaway driver? I assume there is someone for that?”

“That’d be me,” Ryo raised her hand, and walked over to his side to examine the map. “You want me to wait out in the back, right? And I’m guessing you want Yuki and her sharp eyes to be lookout. Yuki, no drinking the night before.”

“You’re not my mom. Your mom’s not even technically my mom,” Yukiko snorted.

“What all are everyone’s specialties?” Daffyd asked, rubbing his pounding temples.

Odori held up her sword, and Heiji his laptop.

“I get hit by shit and hit it back,” Ally chuckled.

“And I’m disguises. But also some swordwork. Not like Dori, though,” Toshiro added, nodding over towards his sister.

“So you do makeup and take orders from a woman,” Daffyd laughed, and Yukiko was the one to make the move. Within a moment she was standing on the table, on top of the map, gun pointed at Daffyd. He, in turn, had his own previously concealed pistol pointed at her.

“Know who you’re going to point that at, girl,” he said gravely.

Yukiko jumped from the table, pushed her hat down over her eyes, and exited out of the apartment with a slam. Daffyd stuck his gun in his belt loop behind his back, wiped off her faint footprints, and returned to work.

Ally was the one to approach Yuki when she showed up at the inn after he and the others returned from looking over the plans, drunk in spite of her sister’s orders. She was filling out a crossword as best as she could inebriated, and Ally only got her attention by reaching up and tapping one of her shoes hanging over the couch she was spread on with his slipper.

“I get the guy’s a jerk, but you shouldn’t go pointing a gun at him when he’s gonna help be our paycheck.”

“I don’t like assholes who talk like that. I don’t like that, I don’t like friggin’ ghosts, I don’t like friggin’ Doctor Who… I don’t like any damned part of this.”

“Listen… Dad told me all the time how hard it was for you to get taken seriously with what you do. But you do for the most part. Fuji’s just tryin’ to get that respect too now, and she’s in a lot more shadows than you ever were.”

“Jigen Daisuke’s a big damn one too.”

“You’re not Jigen Yukiko when they talk about you in the underworld. You’re Jigen. And when they say it they’re afraid. So show him what you can do with those tiny hands, okay? It’s not gonna be that long anyhow. And don’t be so hard on “Doctor Who”. Heiji’s shown me a little bit. It’s no “Gossip Girl,” but it ain’t bad.”

“I’m gonna ignore that whole part about “Gossip Girl”.”

“We have a lotta time in those hotel rooms while traveling for games,” Ally laughed. “Can you walk to your room?”

“Eh, this is my room for the night.” Yukiko yawned, stretched, and pulled her hat over her eyes, and Ally nodded his goodnight to her before heading into his own room.

Fuji’s cheer was what woke Yukiko up from her hangover in the morning, and Yukiko gave a groan and rolled over. She forgot that she was on a couch, and not a bed, and rolled straight down onto the ground.

“A drunk woman’s a terrible thing.” She heard in a Welsh accent, and she pounded her fist on the ground once before rising from the floor and adjusting her tie and hat.

“So you weren’t a nightmare… Listen. I’m sorry about last night. I guess I’m touchy about that sorta stuff.”

“Understandable. You can’t help but be a bit over emotional at times.” 

“I’m… Gonna go powder my nose,” she said through gritted teeth, and then shuffled into the bathroom to freshen up.

 

“Our own control room! We just keep moving up in the world, LeBlanc?”

“Yeah, it’s in a van, Zenigata,” Leo quickly reminded him, looking up from the note he had been told to translate. More Lupinese, courtesy of Fuji.

“You got that done, LeBlanc?”

“Eh? Yeah,” Leo passed over the translation to him, and Max nodded, crumpled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder. “W-What the hell did you do that for?!”

In all reality, it was what felt the most dramatic. Max wouldn’t admit this, however. Instead, he quickly changed the focus of the topic to adjusting the cameras so that they would all be focused on every possible entry and exit. “And we just wait… Two more minutes.”

Leo glanced over and noticed Zenigata tapping on his wristwatch, “Why aren’t you using your cell phone for the time?”

“With roaming charges? I don’t use it if I can help it.”

“You changed the time zones back from when we went to New York, right?”

“Yeah, four hours.”

“Oh my God… Oh my God… Max… You have that set for noon.”

“So?”

“Look at the monitor… It’s one in the afternoon…” Leo gave a groan and slapped his forehead. Max gave a noise that best could be described as a gasp, rose from his seat, and rushed out of the control room, leading Leo along by his tie.

 

“He did this on purpose,” Yukiko sat back in the getaway car next to Ryo and shook her head.

“I don’t get it… They’ve been in there for an hour and I haven’t heard anything from halfwit and nitwit,” Heiji muttered from his spot in the backseat, and Odori looked over to him to the various screens he was clicking in between.

“Maybe they forgot the time zones,” she suggested.

Heiji looked up to her and frowned, “What kind of an idiot… Right. Max. So probably.”

“What’s Zenigata like anyhow?” Ryo had long since grown bored waiting up on the hill looking down upon the castle, and turned back around to Odori and Heiji.

The Ishikawa siblings looked to one another, silently deciding upon who should answer, until Heiji brushed it off with a, “I spent most of the time in my room, honestly.”

“From what I recall he was…. Loud. And respectful of Mother… And his own mother… But he always seemed to be fighting with his father as he grew older. It was curious, they always got along well when Max was younger. There was even talk about him staying with us for a bit.”

“No kidding!” Heiji sat up more in his seat and straightened his posture, “I’m shocked Mom and Dad never went through with it, as into helping out kids they are!”

“That I don’t know why,” Odori shook her head.

“Dori, how are you handling this asshole benching us so well? Please. I really gotta know. I’m on my second pack of cigarettes trying not to run in there.” Yukiko held up and shook her near-empty pack for emphasis, and Odori tilted her head downward.

“I stole his watch collection yesterday when you were busy shouting at him. It made me feel better.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you could be that petty, either!” said Heiji with awe. “I’m so impressed!”

“Hehe…” The chuckle was small and calm, but Odori’s alone. Just like Daffyd’s watch collection now was.


	9. Golden Slumbers

“Okay, I officially don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for,” Ally admitted as he continued to stare at the mural on the bedroom wall of the castle.

Daffyd looked up from the rug he had pulled back and snapped. “Then pull your bloody bangs out of your eyes!”

“But then you’d see me roll them,” Ally grumbled to himself, and continued to walk along the pictures showing different Aesop’s fables quietly and slowly, moving in the opposite direction of Toshiro, who was dissecting the meaning of the raven sitting up in a tree.

“Sir Llewelyn, I can help you push that back!” Fuji exclaimed, and Daffyd only held out a hand to her as she stood from her spot on the bed to stop her.

“It’s too heavy. You’ll hurt yourself,” he answered, grunting in frustration as he rose and kicked it back over the floor. “Nothing anyhow.”

“Hey guys, I hate to be a buzzkill, but we’ve been in this one room for nearly an hour. They’re only going to think we’re shooting for a magazine for so long.” Toshiro held up his camera, and Fuji moaned and fell back into the bed, shutting her eyes briefly. They flickered open, and then flew wide open. She bolted up from her spot and practically clicked her heels as she walked over to the mural, looked back towards the ceiling, and then pointed to the raven Ally was standing in front of.

“Fuji, remember the part about how you’re supposed to share with the rest of the class?” Ally reminded her as he gathered around her with Toshiro and Daffyd.

“I believe it would be… Here!” She pressed at the eye of the raven, and almost immediately the surprisingly thin wall in front of them began to slide away, revealing a long staircase. “See? It pays to rest!”

“How… How did you…?” Daffyd looked to the stairwell, and back up to the ceiling, and then to the stairwell.

“There’s a sun up there. One of the little… What would those be…? I guess the little heat waves surrounding it seemed to be sticking out more than the others. Almost like an arrow! And in the illustration the sun’s glinting in the raven’s eye, and it’s the only animal on the wall like that! So I put two and two together and bed means sun and sun means bird and bird means egg so treasure!” she said this with a giggle, while the three men only tried to process this, awestruck.

“Hey, she’s good, man.” Ally finally broke the silence with a laugh, and Toshiro snorted and shook his head.

Daffyd flicked on the lighter in his pocket as the staircase descended further and further into darkness, which was soon replaced by a flashlight he had stored in a pocket of his vest.

“So did you and Grandpa Lupin ever find this place, Sir Llewelyn?” Fuji asked, leading the group with all the causality of someone who was walking through a department store.

“Never,” was all Daffyd could respond with, gripping Fuji by the shoulder and stopping her short from her next step. “Less talking, more looking at your surroundings.”

Fuji looked at the chasm in between her and the next stone slab, and Daffyd shone his flashlight down into it. It was dark as far as the light could reach it. 

“Glad I’m not afraid of heights or anything!” Fuji chuckled, nervous at best. She went to move, and Daffyd once again pulled her back.

“We’ve got this from here. You keep on a lookout, and the lads and I will go the rest of the way.”

“I appreciate that, Sir Llewelyn, but—”

“Do as I say! I told you if we were going to do this, I was going to be the one in charge,” he snapped back, and then shuffled back a few feet. Both Ally and Toshiro hesitated to follow after he jumped, and Daffyd ushered them on. “Bloody hell, do you think she’s your mother?!”

“You two go on—I’ll be fine.” Fuji winked, and Ally took a few steps of his own back and landed on the other side with a running jump. Toshiro followed last, nodding back to Fuji before disappearing down the hall, along with the light.

She waited until they were far away enough from her to remove one of her red earrings and press it, revealing her own flashlight.

“You should learn that mama hen doesn’t like being far away from her chicks.” Fuji removed her high heels, took a few steps back, and pumped herself up by jumping up and down. She had a few false starts before making a running jump over the water, yelping as she rolled over onto the ground on the other side of the path. She hopped up, dusted herself off, stepped into her heels, and quietly was thankful that no one had been there to see that.

Meanwhile, in a different part of the castle, Max and Leo were looking about in a panic for any sign of Lupin or her gang. It got to the point where Max started to lift up seat cushions on the ancient furniture, only to curse and pound his fist whenever he didn’t find any sign of her.

“Really, Zenigata? Really?” Leo huffed and stood, stretching his aching back.

“You never know, LeBlanc,” Max muttered, kicking gently at the dresser next to him.

“Hey, don’t think I’m weird, okay?”

“Too late…” But Max turned around and saw Leo spreading out on the floor, his brow furrowed as he adjusted his position. “What in the hell are you doing, LeBlanc?”  
“  
I have back issues, okay?” Leo adjusted on the ground and frowned, pausing to look up at the ceiling. He raised himself on his hands and slowly looked over to the far wall, where a glinting caught his eye.

“No way…” Leo hopped up from his spot, wincing at his aching back, and then wandered over to a large mural of creatures.

“What’s going on, LeBlanc?”

“The star on this mural… It’s an actual gem… And the moon up on the ceiling there had a beam that was pointing towards it.”

“…Yeah. It sure does…” Max wandered over and tilted his head.

“I wonder…” Leo reached up and pressed it, and both men were surprised to find a panel moved back on the wall, leading out to a stone staircase shrouded in darkness.

“Haha! Nope!” Leo started to turn away, but Max reached up, gripped onto LeBlanc’s shoulder, and pushed him forward.

“We’ll be fine… I’ll stay in the front.” Max drew out a flashlight from his coat pocket and switched it on, glancing occasionally over his shoulder to make sure Leo was indeed following behind him. Both men gave a yelp and Leo jumped forward as the door behind them shut, drowning out the light from the room behind them. Zenigata tripped forward, and reached out for the flashlight that went flying into the air, but this was in vain. He began his chase after it as it bounced down the winding staircase, leaving Leo to chase after him blindly in the dark.

The flashlight only came to a halt when it rolled under the high heel of a black show with a red back. Zenigata scooped down to pick it up, and was quickly greeted by the blinding light of an earring that doubled as a flashlight.

“F-Fuji!” Leo yelped as he turned the corner of the cold stone corridor.

“Lupin!” Max growled, forgetting his flashlight and making a lunge for Lupin. Fuji stepped aside of her small flashlight, allowing him to only fall down onto the floor. She kicked up the flashlight and caught it in her free hand, and tossed it over to the stunned Leo.

“That temper’s going to be the death of you, Zenigata,” Fuji sighed and shook her head.

“How did you get here?” Leo asked plainly, already feeling his head aching as the sight of the grinning Fuji.

“I walked!”

“Save it, Lupin,” Zenigata growled and pulled a pair of handcuffs out from his back pocket. Fuji put up little struggle as he cuffed her and frog-marched her back up the stairwell, led by Leo, and was then reminded of a glaring problem that was the shut door.

“....I have no idea,” Leo had to finally admit as he looked for the opening. Max gave the stones one more pound with his fist before resting his forehead against the cool stones, while Fuji gave a flittering laugh.

“You know, boys... I can get you out.”  
“What? How? Then do it.” Max stepped aside, and Fuji tilted her head to the left, and then to the right as she examined the doors.

“…Not this one. The other one.”

“What. Other. One?” Max’s teeth were grated together and his words were slow.

“Well I’ll have to lead you silly boys!” she giggled, hopping back down the stairs and turning back to them and giving a wink. “Enjoy the view.”

Leo recoiled outwardly while Max only sighed heavily as she resumed her walk, stopping only to toss the handcuffs back to Max and hit him directly in his chest with them.

 

“Hey, we got the signal from Fuji.” Yukiko tossed a cigarette out of the car and looked over as the screen Heiji was typing away on. Heiji looked up from his screen to her, almost insulted at having said his line. Yukiko and her smoking had been regulated to the back seat, while Odori switched for the front and the fresh air.

“Are you sure that wasn’t just her rattling the marbles out of head?” Odori asked, not taking a break from applying powder to the blade of her sword.

“Ha ha,” Ryo deadpanned as she started up the car. “I’m going to drop you girls off as close as I can—You think you can make it?”

“What, a delicate flower like me?” Yukiko chuckled, loading her gun and then replacing it in her belt.

“Very funny, Miss Daisy.” Ryo started down the winding road. “And Yuki, put those cigarettes away! The ash will get all over the seat!”

“You suck the joy out of everything…” Yukiko placed the bent pack of Newports back in her fedora before shoving it back on her head and giving a small groan of protest.

 

“So you know we’re lost as hell too, right?” Ally asked, and Toshiro nodded. 

“Ah, here we go! This looks about right!” Daffyd called out in front of them, patting on mossy piece of stone in the wall.

“You know that’s the third time he’s said that, right?” Toshiro whispered to Ally, and Ally returned with a nod of his own. “Um, Sir Llewelyn? Maybe Ally should call his sister—She’s our driver and pretty good at directions and things like that.”

“Oh I’m sure,” Daffyd snorted vaguely, stopping in front of a hallway. “Now which way… Left! Left is about right!”

“Hey man, what do you have against Fuji and them anyway?” Ally asked as he followed behind his and Toshiro’s “guide”.

“You’re young so you don’t fully know yet how much trouble women can be…”

“I grew up in a house with two older sisters and he had a wife. I think we got a pretty good idea. Men can be just as much trouble too, you know.”

“We’re learning that firsthand,” Toshiro added beneath his breath, looking casually up at the ceiling.

“....A wife, huh? I had one of those, once upon a time…”

“Did she ever do things like this with you, Sir Llewelyn?” asked Toshiro.

“All the time. She’d be down here with Arsene and myself… He respected her, you know. He didn’t do that with many women, either. She was wonderful at navigating. And then she fell ill, and, well, we know how those things go.”

“Like Yuki’s mom,” Ally nodded solemnly.

“…Come on, lads. I do believe it’s another right up here.” Daffyd turned the corner, and came face-to-face with Max, Leo, and Fuji leading the way.

“Hiiii~!” She waved excitedly, and Toshiro and Ally’s shoulders both fell, feeling exhausted by the cheeriness they were greeted with.

 

“So we know we’ve covered most of the place, from what you’ve described…”

“We’re not concerned about that, Lupin. We’re only wanted to find a way out.”

“Right, right. BUT it’s important to know that we’ve been through most of this place between the two of us, right?” Fuji shrugged and folded up the hand drawn map that she had written out on a napkin Leo had found shoved in his jacket pocket.

“I wish they had handcuffs for mouths,” Max sighed.

“I think you’re thinking of a muzzle,” Leo replied.

“I think maybe we should head straight,” Daffyd pointed forward with his arm, and Fuji cleared her throat.

“You know, that’s a good idea and all, but I’m thinking maybe instead we should go back to the entrance and go to this interesting little cubby I—”

“I think we should all go to the entrance so we can take care of what we need to,” Leo chimed in.

“Or you’ll word us to death?” Ally countered, glaring from beneath his heavy bangs at Leo.

Daffyd huffed, “Leave the American twit and the French twit if they continue being a problem. We’re going straight.”

“Sir Llewelyn, I—”

“And we’ll leave you too, girl,” Daffyd added in a chilly snap.

Toshiro’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward in front of Fuji, “Quit talking to her like that. She’s our boss, respect her like you would’ve her grandfather.”

“Respect is something that’s earned, not given.” Daffyd stepped up to the much taller man, seemingly not afraid of Toshiro or the pair of swords strapped to his back.

“Boys, boys!” Fuji squeezed in-between the two and chuckled. “We’ll just go and follow Sir Llewelyn’s lead—I promised to and a promise is a promise!” 

Toshiro gave one final glare before following the two, and Ally bumped past both Max and Leo on his way past them.

“Wait! We need to turn around and that’s an order!” Max growled, reaching down at his hip.

“It’s not there.” Leo realized, not even making an attempt for his weapon.

“W-What?” Max patted both of his hips and looked up to the grinning Ally, who held both of the guns in either hand. “W-When did he…?”

“You guys may wanna follow. It’d be a shame for you both to rot down here,” Ally muttered, tossing one of the guns over to Toshiro and stretching as he resumed his walk behind Fuji and Daffyd.

“I hate everything about this, LeBlanc,” Max hissed, keeping a distance from the group in front of him with Leo.

 

Going straight had proven useless—They had only come upon a dead end. With a word, and a glare daring anyone to say anything, Daffyd turned around to investigate the cubby Fuji had noticed. He seemed almost satisfied with the waste of time it was as he found it was also a solid stone wall.

“What’d you notice about this wall anyhow, Fuji?” Ally asked, taking a step forward and examining the mossy bricks as best he could.

“Hrm…” She felt around and grinned when bent down and traced the edge of the wall and the floor. “That’s it, right there… Dori-chan?”

Daffyd jumped as he looked to his left and the tiny woman was in front of him, her eyes shut in concentration.

“How bloody long have you been there?!” he snapped, and she took a step forward, breathing inward deeply. Then there was a scream that made all save for the amused Fuji jump, and with a flash the bricks slowly slid apart before falling to the ground. Odori tried her best to hide her grin, but it was not lost on Fuji.

“It’s always so nice to see you having a good time, Dori-chan. Thank you!” Fuji hopped over the stones, and Daffyd’s mouth was slightly opened in shock as he stared at the tiny woman while following after Fuji.

“Goemon must be pretty bad-off if he gave up Zantetsuken…” Leo said to himself, shoving his hands in his pockets as he hopped over the rubble.

“What was that LeBlanc?”

“N-Nothing, Zenigata. Just can’t wait to be done with this case. You know how it is.”

“Definitely… Hearing her talk is exhausting…” Max muttered, his shoulders slumping as Fuji hopped and skipped down the dark and unknown hallway.

“Oh you two are no fun!” Fuij stopped her walked and draped a shoulder over both Max and Leo. “Now how are we supposed to have a fun, banter-filled, classic Lupin-Zenigata relationship if you’re going to be such a downer, Blondie?”

“B-Blondie!?” Max growled.

“That’s the spirit! That’s the Zenigata fury I always heard about! That’s the fire! That’s the—”

“I am NOT Zenigata!” Max’s voice was loud, loud enough to stop the rest of the group in their tracks. It still echoed down the hall as Max realized how loud this had come out.

“Fine. You’re not Zenigata.” Fuji raised her arm and patted Max on the shoulder, albeit hesitantly. Her arm remained wrapped around the much taller Leo’s shoulders, however, and she grinned at him and winked. “Everyone has to find their own path in these things, right?!”

“Are we going to keep going or are we going to stand here all day and talk about our bloody feelings?!” Daffyd snapped, and Fuji giggled and squeezed Leo gently before breaking her hold on him and hurrying back to lead the group.

Leo started to walk slower—To the point where he and Max were at the back of the group of explorers. He found his “in” when Odori came upon a door on a metal gate to slice through.

“You know, um… I don’t get along with my dad a lot either… There was a lot of pressure and I—”

“LeBlanc, I know you’re trying to help. But don’t,” Max hissed, shoving his hands deeply into his pockets.

“We’re halfway there!” Fuji exclaimed, extending her arms up in excitement. Her manicured nails just touched the roof of the narrowing hallway. Already it was becoming difficult for Toshiro to stand upright, and the roof only continued to lower, to the point where Odori turned around at one point and, to her surprise, found that she was the only one not crouched over. One of the perks of being tiny, she thought to herself.

Soon they were all crawling through the tunnel, Odori occasionally in charge of reaching over and tugging Fuji’s skirt down occasionally.

“You should switch to a pantsuit,” the samurai growled at her.

“We’re almost there, Dori-chan!” Fuji exclaimed.

“This isn’t how I saw my Interpol career,” Leo moaned, bowing his head.

“We’re almost there!” Fuji exclaimed.

“I hope so… This place is worse than the subway when it’s full of drunks…” Toshiro muttered.  
“Ah, there we go!” Fuji cried out, pointing to a small light ahead of them. The rest of the group following her lead, and Fuji was the first one to squeeze out, having some difficulty but practically flying out once past her chest.

“Owww,” she moaned to herself on the floor she fell on, rolling onto her back.

“That wouldn’t be an issue if you used a sports bra as well,” Odori replied as she stood over Fuji, jabbing her gently in the stomach with the butt of her sword.

“Oh Dori-chan I’d rather die,” Fuji replied, sitting up on the floor and brushing some of the dust and cobwebs out of her hair.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Daffyd crawled out of the space and looked around to make sure he was indeed where he thought he was. From the old furniture to the even older articles on the walls in frames, he recognized every part of the flat. “How in the hell…?”

Fuji bolted up from her resting position with such quickness that it startled Max, and he started to back track into the vent and bump into Leo.

“I know! I was really confused at first too!” she exclaimed. “So many floors of this place aren’t rented out! Except they are! In the Lupin family name! Daddy always said we had real estate in Wales but I never knew exactly what he meant… That’s actually what drew me here in the first place, Sir Llewelyn!”

Fuji dusted herself off and looked around the wall at the framed news articles. “I had Heiji-chan pull up some blueprints, and then do a small scan of the place underground. It didn’t really add up. But then I figured it out! It led back to your place!”

“Arsene… That bastard…!” Daffyd snarled, knocking down one of his dining room chairs.

“He had help, Sir Llewelyn.”

“What in the bloody hell are you going on about?”  
“Well, Grandpa Lupin respected your wife, right? Enough that when she got sick, he considered her enough of a friend to help her out with a project,” Fuji lifted up the frames on the wall as she continued to speak, tapping on bits of the wall as she did so. 

“You mean she…?”

“I wasn’t so sure about it at first… But I’ve been reading my Grandpa’s journals and it all points to it!” She continued to knock on the walls and tilted her head, and then gasped, snapped her fingers, and then nodded to Ally. Jigen nodded, walked over, and much to Daffyd’s horror punched a hole through the wall.

“I won’t get the deposit back, you wench!” Daffyd exclaimed while Fuji reached into the gaping max now in the middle of the plaster.

“Lupin, you’ve gone on enough with this,” Zenigata sighed, holding up a pair of handcuffs.

“Ahem.” Max turned around and gave a start at the sight behind him. From the beam of the roof was Yukiko, her legs wrapped around the beam and a rifle aimed directly at Zenigata’s hand.

“And you, hands up.” Yukiko pointed the rifle to Leo, and he sighed and held up both of his hands, pulling them out of his pockets and lowering his head.

“Isn’t that uncomfortable for you, Yuk?” Toshiro laughed at the ridiculous sight of Yukiko hanging from the beam upside down, and she shrugged.

“I’ve had worse. I waited three days in the Everglades once. You ever fight an alligator for a piece of beef jerky? That was a rough week.”

“I hate all of you,” Max sighed, his own hands raised and resting on his head.

“For you, Sir Llewelyn.” Fuji extended an envelope out to him, and he stared at it, examining it quietly a moment before taking it and opening it up. “It’s from her, right?”

He read over the note, pushing up his glasses halfway through, and suddenly rushed over to the bedroom. Leo and Max went to follow behind the rest of the Lupin gang, only to halt when they heard a whistle from Yukiko and place their hands back on their heads.

“You guys are gonna go for a little walk, understood? And no cops. Heiji’ll know if you call them. Ryo’s outside waiting for you two to show your handsome faces. So I’d get a start on that—Maybe see the sights! I hear there’s a lot of great pubs around here.”

While Yukiko watched the two slowly back out of the apartment, and hopped down from the beam to follow them, Daffyd pointed at Ally and Toshiro to move the bed in his lone bedroom, which they did so. Daffyd then pulled out a switchblade from his pocket and set out cutting out a chunk of the old, worn blue carpeting.

Fuji rested on her knees opposite of him, her eyes fixated upon the spot he was cutting at. Odori started to raise her sword to offer it, but Toshiro only raised a hand and gently shook his head “no”. 

Daffyd took the switchblade and wedged it underneath a board that seemed a bit looser than the others. After pulling it away, he reached in and pulled out a wrapped parcel, shaped almost like a toy doll wrapped in a blanket.

“I’ve been sleeping under it for years,” he chuckled, and hugged onto the parcel. The laughter was loud, and transformed so that Daffyd was wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh… Oh that’s bloody wonderful!”

And Fuji leaned back, and much to the confusion of the others, joined in the laugh. This was only compounded by Daffyd’s reaching over and embracing her while laughing.

 

“I love it!” Fuji’s eyes sparkled as she looked down at the paper that declared that she was, indeed, now considered a dame in the United Kingdom. “I’m going to frame it soon as I get home! OH! Or maybe put it on Mom and Dad’s fridge! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“All right, that’s enough of that.” Daffyd pushed Fuji away gently as she went it for an embrace. Most of the rest of her group was focused on the large, golden egg in the center of the dining room table. “Now I suppose you’ll be wanting that. It’s what you came for after all.”

“You know, actually, I think we’re okay!” Fuji replied with a tilt of the head, and the rest of her gang turned and looked at her, all wearing similar looks of shock.

“Y-You know that gas and my time aren’t cheap, Fuji,” Ryo reminded her with a clearing of the throat.

“I know! But… It belongs here, don’t you think, Ryo-san? It’s a reminder of his wife and all,” Fuji said quietly, shrugging her shoulders.

“You and your big heart are going to be the death of you, Fuji.”

“Well, let me have my fun until then, Ryo-san!”

“Then take this.” Daffyd had wandered back into his bedroom and come back with a small package, which he tossed over to Fuji. She unwrapped it carefully and lifted it up, looking through the monocle before huffing on it and wiping it off on her jacket to polish it. “It was your great-grandfather’s. You grandfather lost it to me in a bet years ago, and spent a majority of his sober life attempting to get it back from me. It was a bit of fun he and I had with one another. You’ve more than earned it.”

“Hehe, I love it! It’ll match with my fall wardrobe!”

“I’m not letting you wear that,” Ryo muttered, slowly pushing Fuji’s arm down as she went to affix it to the front of her eye.

“Well, I’m sure you all have places to be, but let me fix you tea before you go. Also… Whichever of you bastards stole my watch collection has ten minutes to replace it before I start shooting.”

Heiji looked to Odori, who gave a sigh of defeat and turned to walk back down to the car.

“Hey, lemme help you with that.” Yukiko moved to join Daffyd in the kitchen, and she soon found herself in the unlikely position of reaching for a jar of tea leaves as he put the electric kettle on. “Listen, uh… Sorry if I was a hothead a lot… I kinda have to be in my work, and I don’t always know how to shut it off.”

“You to what you have to. So… Your mother…”

“Opera singer. My dad was put in charge of watching her, one thing led to another, and… Bam! One Yukiko.”

“And she became ill?”

“Yeah… So it was me and my dad for a while… I think that’s where part of my charming personality comes from, too.”

“And now you’re with that redheaded one, right?”

“Toshiro? Nah. I don’t bother with the whole dating game anymore. Too messy.”

“I remember telling myself that when Gwen passed away.”

“Yeah, and you turned out okay!”

Daffyd gave her a critical look and poured his boiling water into the teapot. “So we’re clear, it’s your stubborn attitude I wasn’t a fan of, not the fact you were a woman. ”  
“Yeah, my dad ain’t too big a fan of it either,” Yukiko chuckled. “We ready with the tea party, or do I need to break out the fancy gloves for it?”

“And a damned smartass, too, I might add!” Daffyd continued with a laugh as she followed him out with the tea and tin of biscuits she’d pulled off of a shelf.

 

Yukiko had been sorely disappointed that the biscuits were actually cookies. It wasn’t until later she remembered that she’d done the same thing as a child, during her first visit to London when they’d stolen the crown jewels. 

As she stood by herself outside of the inn, smoking her cigarette, she thought back with a smile as she remembered trying on the jewels in front of a mirror.

“Man I was a dumb kid,” she chuckled to herself, crushing the cigarette underneath her saddle shoe and turning to walk about inside. 

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself!” Yukiko drew her gun, but slowly realized that she’d pulled it on an elderly woman. “Oh! You must be a hunter if you have one of those here!”

“Lady, it’s dangerous to be out at this hour!” Yukiko snapped as she stowed her gun once more in her belt loop.

“My apologies!” the older woman chuckled and raised a hand up to her mouth. “I do like the moon this time of night…”

“Yeah.” Yukiko looked up towards the full moon and sighed. “Hey, how’d you get all the way out here any…”

The old woman was gone. There was only a gust of wind where she’d been but a moment ago.

“…I… Nah. No way. Not doin’this! Not tonight!” Yukiko shook her head quickly before turning around and shutting the door behind her, making sure three times that every lock on the door was bolted tightly.


	10. Doctor My Eyes

“Eh?” Leo sat up in the bed of his room, feeling disoriented at being back there for a change. It’d felt so long since he’d been there and not some hotel with Zenigata. He looked down at the items that had previously been on his nightstand splayed out on the floor in front of him and hung his head.

“I yelled again?” he asked, raising his head as he watched Max walk through the hallway, toothbrush still in his mouth. “Also what are you doing and what’s my door doing wide open like that?”

Max raised a finger for him to wait, rushed to the bathroom, and then emerged a moment later, having rinsed out his mouth. “I like to walk around, and you were making so much noise when I got home that I figured if you fell out of bed that I’d wanna hear it. You’re gonna kill yourself like that, LeBlanc.”

“Long night again? I can’t imagine you got much sleep with me doing that.” Leo ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Sorry, Zenigata.” 

“I’m fine, I’m used to hearing random screams from studying.”

“Studying what?”

“Eh, rabbinical school mainly. Lots of frustrating nights.”

“Oh! Speaking of that!” Leo hopped up from his hunched over spot collecting his fallen items from the floor and rushed over to the door. “I spoke with a local rabbi about putting in a mezuzah on the side of the door? I didn’t know if that’d be overstepping too much but I noticed you’d been looking like you were looking for something on the doorway whenever you walked through a doorway.”

“Yeah, we had them in most of the doorways at my old place…” Max admitted, blinking.

“All of them?”

“Yeah. Well, not the bathrooms, or… There’s some rhyme and reason to it. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Well, I just figured it would make it seem a little more like home to you?”

“Heh, yeah. I’ll help you put them up after work…”Max stopped upon a knock on the door, and Leo felt his blood run cold. “Who the hell could that—”

“I’ll check! W-Why don’t you go measure one of the bedroom doorways, I’ll check it out!” Leo replied. Max raised an eyebrow, and with a shrug turned to go walked down the hall of the apartment.

Leo, meanwhile, looked through the peephole, and immediately jerked his head back. He looked in again, and rubbed his eyes.

“I don’t think he’s home….”

“Nonsense!” The blonde woman nudged her husband and smiled. “This is the address he sent us, after all!”

“Max! Nevermind, it’s for you!” Leo called out, quickly backing away from the door.

“Eh?” Max leaned inward and looked through the peephole, all while failing to notice that Leo had since backed out of the room. “Shit… LeBlanc, it’s my parents, I—Eh? Leo…? Where did you…?”

There was another insistent knock upon the door, and Max swung it wide open. “M-Mom. Dad.”

 

“Maxie!” His mother immediately jumped forward and embraced her son, her arms filled with paper bags but still finding the ability to embrace him.

“Maxwell.” Zenigata gave a nod from the doorway, and bent down to pick up a bag that his wife had dropped.

“This is where you’re staying? Oh it’s so beautiful, Max!” His mother gasped, setting the bags down on the floor and looking about.

“Well, my roommate gave me free-range to do what I wanted with the place, so I’ve been playing around with it,” Max replied. And it was true. Since his moving in the previous month, he’d set up some small plants on the windowsills of the two windows in the living room/dining room area, and even found some artwork to hang up on the walls. All without almost any complaint from Leo. “Hey, let me go grab him! LeBlanc! You busy?”

“H-Huh?” Leo had pinned himself to the back of his door, and gulped down hard as he looked at the reflection of himself in the mirror across from his door. “…One look at me and Zenigata will know for sure…” 

Leo began to rifle through his drawers, panicking as he paced over to the closet and then changed direction to the bookshelves. He gasped and snapped his fingers—The bookshelf!

When Leo did emerge from his room, it was with a stack of books in front of him, high enough to hide his face and heavy enough to make walking a bit of a struggle.  
“Hey, Zenigata!”

“LeBlanc, this is my mother and—What in the hell are you even doing right now, LeBlanc?”

“Just a few books to return to the library!” Leo chuckled, shuffling his way past both of Max’s parents, as well as the very confused Max.

Zenigata tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, sniffing the air. “…That cologne…”

“I shouldn’t be long—Bye!” Max went to go give Leo a book that had dropped off of the top of the stack, but Leo only dodged out of the way and felt around for the doorknob to the apartment’s door.

Leo opened the door wide, expecting a quick exit, but only collided with a wall of a person. He fell to the floor, dropping the books around him, and looked up, bent glasses, at the sight of the befuddled Lupin the Third sitting on the ground, rubbing his head and surrounded by a pile of dropped books while Fujiko Mine-Lupin looked on from the sidelines.

 

 

“Pull!” Yukiko shouted, and another clay pigeon whirled into the air, only to be smashed to pieces within seconds. “Pull!”

Another perfect shot.

“Pull!”

One after the other they came, until she aimed, yelled, and then looked over expectantly, only to find Jigen holding his empty hands up to show everything was gone.

“You’ve gotten faster.” Jigen rubbed his aching back as he stood from his kneeling position, and Yukiko grinned and shoved her gun in its holster. 

“And you thought a magnum would be too big for me.”

“Well, yeah, I didn’t want you to break your damned hand!” Jigen replied. “What do you say to target practice?”

“Eh, you sure you’re up for that, Dad…?”

“I’m old, not dead, Yuki.” Jigen pulled out his own gun and smiled from beneath his worn fedora. “Or are you afraid you’d gonna lose to your old man?”

“Yeah, just don’t cry too much into your bourbon when I kick your ass this time, all right?” Yukiko laughed. Although this seemed light enough, she allowed her smile to fade when Jigen passed her.

She allowed him to go first, and remained in the back of the cement room, leaning against a pillar as she watched him shoot. They were all quick enough, but she flinched when she watched one of the bullets miss the target and end up making a neat hole in the top right of the paper.

“Getting better!” Jigen exclaimed, holding on to the paper as he walked over to Yuki. “Not bad for a guy with vision like a mole nowadays. Depth perception’s gotten a lot better.”

“Dad…”

“Hey. I know I’m not gonna be where I was. I’m just happy for somethin’, Yuki. That was scary for a little while when you were growing up.”

“Yeah… Found out your vision’s going… And then a kid…. Dad, why’d you call me to Chicago?”

“Shoot. Then we’ll talk.” Jigen nodded over to the targets, and Yukiko pulled out her gun with a sigh, and from her spot fired six times. She walked over, and moved the target closer to her, pulling it off of the pin and holding it up.

“There. I finished my homework. Can you tell me now?”

“…Fine. Let’s get something to drink while we do, huh?”

“The Jigen way. Got it.”

 

The waitress in the bar/restaurant seemed equal parts impressed and concerned with his casually both father and daughter treated their liquor. Several glasses in, and both seemed just as at ease as they had when they’d sat down from one another in the booth of the wood-paneled restaurant.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’about! No more of that thin New York crap!” Yukiko grinned as a pizza was set down in-between the two, and Jigen only chuckled to himself and sipped from his beer.

“Looks like you’re not having a hard time adjusting to the wanted life again.”

“Me? Nah. I loved it when I was a kid, I love it now!” Yukiko replied, taking a slice of the deep dish pizza from the tray and setting it on her plate. “Plus it’s what you trained me for!”

Jigen’s smile fell. “I trained you so you could protect yourself when people came after me. You’re the one who took off and used what I taught you to live this kind of life. You could’ve been a singer, you know.”

“This again…”

“You’re as good as your mom was, Yuki!”

“I don’t really remember how good she was.” Yukiko admitted. Silence fell between the two, broken by the sound of Jigen setting his beer mug down on the wooden table of the booth. 

“…Yeah… I guess it’s been a while…. You remember when you first met me though, right?”

“Yeah. Lupin answered the door and you were laid out on the couch. You called him nuts for wanting to look after me, because you didn’t know who I was right away. Dad, why are you bringing up Mom again?”

Jigen reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a printed out sheet of paper. “Caught wind of this going up at an auction house tomorrow night.”

“Eh?” Yukiko unfolded the sheet of paper and skimmed over it.

“It’s a recording from one of Mom’s sessions. Also the costume she wore for it and a picture of her in it.”

“You want me to steal it for you?”

“I want you to steal it for you. All I’ve ever had to give you your entire life is one photograph of me and your mom together. I always looked for stuff like that, Yuki. But her bastard ex-boyfriend torched most of her shit when we ran off together.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but why not just have me buy it, Dad? I’ve got enough credit probably. Mom was never that high-profile an opera singer…”

“She’s well-known for being the girlfriend of a mob boss, though. Plus you shouldn’t have to buy it! She’s your mother!”

“But you don’t want me to go saying that because you don’t know if this mob goon has any goons waiting in the wings.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“Where’s this auction at anyhow?”

“Paris.”

“Heart of Interpol.” Yukiko nodded, and folded the listing in her pocket. “Yeah, you got it.”

“I’ll keep it at our place until you get your own set up.”

“I actually got one.”

“Really? And here I thought you’d be crashing on the couch forever.”

“Toshiro couldn’t find any apartments in his price range, so I offered to be roommates with him.”

“So you guys finally…?”

“W-What? No way, Dad!”

“Huh. Always seemed like you would, too. Here. Got you a ticket to the place. I can give you a lift to the airport if you want.” Jigen reached into the pocket of his jacket again and pulled out a single envelope, and Yukiko examined the name and time on the boarding pass.

“Shit! I’ve gotta get going!” Yukiko shoved the ticket in her own jacket, bolted up from her seat, and headed to the door of the restaurant. “Bye Dad, love you!”

“Bye! H-Hey, wait! Does this mean I’m paying for this Yuki?! Yuki! This is like twelve beers, Yuki! You stepmom’s going to kill me!”

 

“See? I told you he’d be in, Fujiko!” Lupin sat up from his spot and adjusted his red jacket. “Fuji’s taking off this week, so it only makes sense he’d be off, too!”

“All right. You won. Congratulations,” Fujiko sighed with a roll of the eyes, bending down to help pick up a few of the books surrounding Leo.

“W-What are you guys doing?” Leo asked with a dry gulp.

“Your mom thought you were hungry. So she had the cook make this and promise me I’d say it was from her,” Lupin replied, holding up a casserole dish wrapped in a towel. The only response from Fujiko was a Latin dictionary straight to the side of the head. “O-Ow! Watch it, Fujicakes!”

“Ugh… All right, let me…. Um… How about we go out for lunch? There’s a bunch of places around here that are just great!”

“Don’t you want to put this in the fridge, first?” Lupin asked with a raised eyebrow and the casserole dish as Leo began to march toward the stairwell, and the officer stopped dead, quickly turned on his heel, and plucked the tray from his father’s hands.

He slowly opened the door to his apartment after a heave of a sigh of relief as he heard Max giving a tour of the apartment to his parents.

“This is so spacious for France!” gasped Max’s mother from one of the back bedrooms. “Isn’t it, Koichi?!”

Zenigata gave a murmur of agreement, and Leo began a long stride for the kitchen, yelping and picking up his speed as he heard Max heading back into the living room.

“So yeah… That’s about it.” Leo heard Max drop his hands to his sides in the living room and shuffle on the wooden floor.

“Damnit…” Leo muttered, shutting his eyes tightly before slamming the casserole into the stove and shutting the door, not realizing how loud this was until it was too late.

“LeBlanc? Are you in there?” Max’s voice raised in confusion, and Leo took a step back in the kitchen before glancing to the one, small window.

“…Ugh…” Leo’s shoulders fell, and he tossed off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves before climbing up and balancing on the lip of the sink to open the window.

“Le—” Max stopped short upon seeing a purple jacket on the floor of the kitchen, and then the breeze blowing the curtains of the kitchen window, before he rolled his eyes and picked up the jacket and balling it in disgust. “I thought he promised no more leaving this in front of the fridge…”

Max leaned in and shut the window, and Leo stifled his cursing as he watched his one chance back into the apartment vanish in front of him. He had managed to clutch onto the ledge, as well as rest the tips of his toes on a decorative ledge under him, and had done his best to keep his mind off of how long a fall it was from his current spot.

He swore to himself as he saw the next open window was three apartments down, and began his shuffle.

Both Fujiko and Lupin turned and looked down the hall as Leo burst through about fifteen minutes later from a neighboring apartment, heaving and shaking.

“S-So there’s…” Leo sucked in a deep gasp for air, and rested his hands on his thighs. He shakily raised on hand to the left, pointing weakly. “…This place with great quail… We should go there…. We should go there now. Come on!”

 

“Jeeze…” Yukiko lowered her binoculars and rubbed her eyes, hanging the binoculars from a nearby gargoyle on the roof she had taken up residence on as she staked out the place. “I’m an assassin, not a thief, Dad… How you could’ve thought I’d be able to get into a place like this on my own…”

“Eh, he has faith in you.”

Yukiko drew her gun before even bothering to recognize the thick accent. Toshiro looked back down at her, puzzled, and she slowly lowered her weapon.

“How in the hell did you even know I was here?”

“I followed the trail of cigarette butts… Also my dad and yours talk,” replied Toshiro, crouching down and picking up the binoculars to look through them. “Looks pretty heavy in there…”

“Yeah… Been staking out the place all day… It’s pretty tight in there.”

“Eh, I still think we can do it.”

“Wait. What? We?” Yukiko rose to her feet and dusted her suit off, and Toshiro smirked.

“Yeah. Come on. It’ll be fun. Like that one time we took the Fiat for a joyride.”

“It was the Alfa Romeo.”

“Eh?”

“We hotwired the Alfa Romeo.”

“Pretty sure it was the Fiat…”

“And pretty sure I KNOW it was the Alfa Romeo…. I was the one who got it running!”

“And I was the one who tied the wooden blocks to the pedals so you could reach!”

“Yeah, the one month you we were the same height,” she laughed, reaching up on her tiptoes and holding up one of her hands to accentuate the size difference between them. She placed her binoculars around her neck, picked up her suitcase, and motioned for Toshiro to follow her down the building. “How the hell we’re supposed in there, anyhow…”

“We could always just… Go in…” Toshiro suggested, motioning with his hands. 

Yukiko narrowed her eyes, looked down at the sea of limousines, suits, and gowns, and back up at Toshiro.

Toshiro shrugged, “I’ll wear the gown if you want. I don’t care.”

Toshiro ended up being able to wear a suit. Yukiko glowered in the department store, keeping a distance behind him the entire time he picked out their disguises.

“That one.” Toshiro pointed over to a white dress hanging on a far wall to the shopkeeper, and Yukiko’s eyes went wide.

“You’ve got to be kidding…”  
“What? It’s your favorite color! Come on, we don’t have a lot of time before the auction starts!”

Yukiko gave a groan as she took hold of it after it was handed to her. She glared at Toshiro once more from beneath her hat, and then trudged into the changing room of the boutique.

A black wig was able to hide his red hair, and in the small Skoda he was also able to pin her back, and then turn her around and take care of the makeup with a small kit.

“You shouldn’t cross your arms like that. It’ll just make you look anxious.”

“I couldn’t wear a bra with how this thing was cut!” she hissed in return, making no move to lower her arms from their spot, crossed in front of the plunging neckline of the front of the dress. The back was nearly as back, exposing more of her back than she was accustomed to, while at least the long skirt with the sequin design on the bottom offered some comfort. Although it was short-lived, as ever movement of her legs reminded her of the slit going up the left side.

“Great!” He sat back and shoved the small kit in the glove box of the car. Yukiko reddened until she realized that he was talking about the makeup and not what she had been complaining about. He moved the rearview mirror for Yukiko to get a better look, and she jerked her head back quietly. “Eh, no good?”

“No….. It’s great.”

“Eh, I used to make some side money at a Macy’s makeup counter when acting wasn’t paying all of the bills. Some son of the Ishikawa clan, huh?”

“…We should get in…” she cleared her throat and reached for her fedora, only to side as she remembered that her hair had been piled up. Instead she loosened a few bangs over one of her eyes and then climbed out of the car, wobbling a bit in the sandals before heading into the auction house with Toshiro holding onto her arm to help her balance.

 

“So that’s how we solved that one. Just a guy in a rubber mask!” Leo tore off another chunk of his bread before popping it in his mouth and shrugged, quickly downing it with more of the red wine that he’d taken a good portion of. 

“You look really thin, Ari,” Fujiko replied, watching as her son took another bit of bread.

“Oh? No, I’m actually good! My roommate is really big into cooking! I’ve gained a kilo since he moved in!”

“Must be some roommate if you’re so afraid of us meeting them not scared of being seen with us in public,” Lupin mused, swirling around his own glass of red wine before sipping a bit.

“I…”

“Ari, if you’re seeing someone new, that’s fine,” Fujiko reached out and took one of her son’s hands that rested on the table, and Leo flinched.

“T-That’s not it at all…” Leo gulped down the bit of bread that had become lodged in his throat and did his best to stop his stuttering. “I-It’s just that… My roommate is…”

 

“--A real son of a bitch to get checked into baggage, but… Your mother said it was important to you.” Zenigata gave another clear of the throat and placed his hands in his pockets as he kept his distance from Max in the living room. There was no motion to hug or move any closer. There didn’t seem to be any need to. This was lost on Max’s mother, however, who wrapped and arm around either man’s back and pulled the three in for an embrace, all the while Max kept his jutte tight in his hands.

“This is so good, both of the Zenigata boys together! Oh my G-d, if your mother could see this, Koichi!”

“We’ll take a photo and I’ll mail it to her later,” Zenigata replied vaguely, wriggling out of the grasp and taking a step back. “It seems like you’re doing well for yourself, Max. Congratulations. Natasha, I think we can—”

“Stay for dinner is what you’ll be doing!” The door kicked open, and a hunched over man with a mustache as gray as his shaggy hair and a cane in his right hand announced with a grin. Behind him followed a woman who looked slightly younger than him—Definitely partially Asian, but with gray eyes and long blonde hair. She adjusted the top of her purple blouse before passing the dazed Leo her clutch. Before Leo could turn around, as he had been dreading doing, the old man with the cane bumped into Zenigata, sending them both down to the ground and both Natasha and the other woman gasping.

“Urk!” The old man shuddered upon hearing a crunch as he steadied himself on his cane, and looked down at the crushed pair of glasses that had been knocked off of Zenigata’s face and were now under the cane.

“O-Oh no, Koichi! Your spare pair’s at the hotel!” Natasha moaned, bending down to pick up the busted brown frames.

“S-Sorry about that! These old bones spend more time in front of a desk than they do walkin’ anymore!” The old man lifted his hand apologetically, and started to help Zenigata by reaching forward to dust his suit off. Eventually he was shoved away by Zenigata, who looked down at the pair of broken glasses in Natasha’s hands with a frown.

“It’s okay, Koichi. It’s just distances you have trouble with. I’ll just drive back to the hotel!”

“So those are your parents, LeBlanc?” Max whispered as the elderly man hobbled over to the dining room table, and Leo jumped a bit, eyeing Max nervously.

“W-Why wouldn’t they be?” Leo chuckled, and Max raised an eyebrow.

“You look like your mom.” Leo did a double take at this and blinked, trying to process this but his brain starting and stalling as he attempted to. He numbly walked over to the square dinner table and took a seat as far as he could from Zenigata.


End file.
